Psychiatrists fear services failing suicidal people, conference told

Concerns are increasing among psychiatrists that mental health services are failing people who later take their own lives, a conference in Carlow was told today.

"There is need for urgent clarification from the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Kathleen Lynch on the number of suicides following premature discharge from care or refusal of admission to acute psychiatric care," Des Kavanagh, general secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses Association, said today.

Speaking at the its annual delegate conference in Tullow, Co Carlow, he said that "at present we have a situation where there is no system for identifying the number of persons who are denied admission to acute units or discharged prematurely and later complete suicide".

"In one service, Carlow, Kilkenny South Tipperary, we have identified 14 persons who have completed suicides in 18 months, three while in-patients, six following discharge and the remainder who had some contact or involvement with our services," he said. Such figures were "too much. Surely this points to system failures which need to be reviewed," he said.

He had written to Ms Lynch, “seeking information on records being kept on adverse events following premature discharge or failure to admit to mental health services. There has been no response to that request yet,” he said.

In 2013, 73 children and adolescents were admitted to adult acute units "despite assurances from various governments and health service managers to end the scandal," he said. Referring to "positive developments" in opening new child and adolescent facilities in Galway and Cork and new beds in Dublin, "this is happening too slowly".

He pointed out that “ up to 20-25 per cent of beds in some services are regularly not in use for a variety of reasons”, and that “it seems that 25 per cent of the promised beds for children and adolescents have not been provided while up to 25 per cent of those which have been provided are not operational”.

He called on the Minister “to forget the fantasy mental health services she talks about and to embrace reality”.

He also accused the department of “substantially ignoring” the needs of persons with Difficult to Manage Behaviours (DMB). It was “a national scandal” and “not acceptable that some of our patients are ending up in prison while the health service ignores their needs,” he said.

It was also unacceptable that some nurses were being beaten up by patients. Some such nurses “were left severely traumatised”, he said.