AT LEAST 100 children under the age of 18 have been admitted to adult psychiatric facilities this year despite a commitment by the HSE to phase out the practice.
Figures released by the HSE last night show 43 children under 17 and 57 children under 18 were admitted to adult psychiatric facilities until the end of August this year. The HSE could not say how many children under the age of 17 were admitted to adult facilities.
“Where a young person is admitted to an adult facility it is usually for a limited period of time, for example, over a weekend and an appropriate care plan and placement is arranged for them as soon as possible,” said the HSE in a statement released following news that four teenagers were admitted to the Waterford adult mental health inpatient unit.
On Sunday and Monday this week two girls and two boys, the youngest of who was 14, were admitted to the Waterford adult mental health inpatient unit. The teenagers were kept in separate rooms with en suite facilities away from adults at the 44-bed psychiatric unit.
Dr Patrick Devitt, inspector of Mental Health Services, has described the practice of admitting children to adult centres as “inexcusable, counter-therapeutic and almost purely custodial in that clinical supervision is provided by teams unqualified in child and adolescent psychiatry”.
A code of practice, which came into effect in July 2009 and has been supported by the HSE, says no child under 16 years should be admitted to adult psychiatric units. The code will be extended to cover 17-year-olds from December 1st, 2010, and 18-year-olds from December 1st, 2011.
In a statement about this incident the HSE said it was an “exceptional and uncommon event”. It also described as “completely untrue” claims that one of the teenagers was cared for by a security guard due to a shortage of available staff at the weekend.
“The Waterford adult mental health inpatient unit was fully staffed last weekend . . . In fact, additional nurses were provided to ‘special’ the teenager with one-to-one care,” said the HSE in a statement by its south region. But the Psychiatric Nurses Association said yesterday there is a crisis due to a shortage of available child and adolescent units.
“Children have been placed at adult units in Clonmel and Limerick this year. Children with psychiatric problems have also been given beds in paediatric wards and on one occasion a child was sent home with their parents to look after them,” said Des Kavanagh, general secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses Association. He said there had been a continuous stream of promises about new resources but little action.
Fine Gael spokesman on mental health Dan Neville said the admission of the teenagers to an adult facility highlighted a widespread practice and a shortage of approved units for young people.
“It must be remembered that 200 children were admitted nationally to adult units last year.
“This represented 55 per cent of all the admissions of children and illustrates that the absence of age-approved centres for children and adolescents means this unacceptable practice is widespread,” he said.