NEW FIGURES show the Health Service Executive (HSE) spent on average €43,122 per week accommodating 11 patients in the mental health services overseas last year.
According to figures released through the Freedom of Information Act, they show that the HSE last year spent €2.2 million on accommodating 11 psychiatric patients overseas – or €200,000 per patient for the year.
In a brief statement accompanying the figures, the HSE explained that “there were considerable variations in the length of time individuals were placed abroad”.
Explaining why patients are sent abroad, the HSE states that one of the reasons is “placement for specialist care and treatment which is not currently available in Ireland”.
The HSE also explained that the overseas care is “required because of the complexity of the individual presentation and treatment needs, eg a number of co-morbid conditions”.
Last night, the general secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA), Des Kavanagh, said: “We would have the view that the State has had adequate resources over the years to put proper facilities in place for these patients, but it has been put on the long finger.”
He added: “On the other hand, there are patients in Ireland who could do with care overseas because we don’t have the facilities here.”
Mr Kavanagh said he isn’t surprised at the costs involved. “These patients would have extraordinary needs and be very demanding,” he said. “We don’t spend enough on these patients in our service as it is.”
Mr Kavanagh added: “We could have the most fantastic mental health service in the world if the money was allocated to it. There are pockets of excellence, but they only hide the reality of a badly run-down service where the HSE has taken money from mental health to pay for over-expenditure in other areas.”
The long-serving PNA general secretary remarked that “it is the most depressing time to be working in mental health. The service is as bad as I have ever seen it.”
Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher said yesterday: “If we can’t provide for these patients in Ireland, we have an obligation to provide proper care for them overseas.” He said the care of these patients overseas was likely to continue as the Government had been sluggish in providing the funding for promised mental health service recruitment.
