Sean Molloy: director of nursing of Dublin West mental health services finds the lack of funding frustrating'
I have responsibility for management of mental health nursing services for what is the largest catchment area in the country. It starts at the canal at Harold's Cross in Dublin and stretches down as far as the Kildare border. It has a population of 270,000. Many areas are very deprived and unfortunately there is a correlation between physical and mental illness and social deprivation.
Our headquarters is in St Loman's, Ballyowen, Palmerstown, were we now have 45 patients. We also offer a range of residential day services there. Our acute inpatient service is based in Tallaght.
My role is primarily strategic and involves a lot of planning. I work with a team of assistant directors who have specialist areas.
I get to work at 8 a.m. and I go through reports from the various services, where I am told about anything of major significance. I would deal with any industrial relations issues, sudden death or fire.
Regrettably my day revolves around meetings a lot. I meet regularly with my core management team, the assistant directors and the unions.
I spend a lot of time on the road. When I first came to work in St Loman's there was no place in the Dublin west catchment area further than 20 minutes away. Now I can spend 20 minutes getting on to the M50. So I try to have as many of my meetings in St Loman's as possible.
I also work closely with Trinity College Dublin. We provide clinical placements for their students. It is very important to have students going through the system. It keeps us on our toes.
Staff retention is a major issue for us and unfortunately we lose a lot of staff to rural areas, where they do very well because they are so well exposed here. I have travelled to South Africa, Nigeria and Finland on recruiting drives. We are currently carrying in the region of 30 vacancies.
We pioneered the whole concept of home care in the psychiatric services. In 1990 we closed some wards and set up the first outreach service in Ireland. This was in the area of Clondalkin. It was then extended to Ballyfermot and most recently to Tallaght. We offer a day hospital service and homecare service to our clients. The perception is that the family of someone who is ill want him or her in a traditional hospital setting, but this is not usually the case. They want support to keep them at home. The whole idea is to empower the family and the service user.
This has worked very well and at the moment I am working on accessing resources to try and provide more locally based services.
Other key areas I'm working on at the moment are negotiating changes in working practices and looking at training needs. We are moving away from the traditional mental health service which was hospital based. We need to plan for this.
Insufficient funding for the area can be frustrating. We are competing with the high-tech acute hospital sector. Because this area gets so much attention other services lose out.
I have been working in this sector for 40 years and I will probably retire next year. I have absolutely no regrets except the limited contact I have with patients now. Contact with patients is why I got into the job as a nurse in the first place.