Health Correspondent Eithne Donnellan reports on treatment changes in Mayo
A parents group in Mayo believes that children in urgent need of treatment will have to wait up to 1½ years to be seen by health board child and adolescent mental health teams. The delay, they claim, is because a specialist who was treating their children has been ordered to do a different job.
The specialist, Dr Edel McAndrew, had been treating children in Co Mayo suspected of having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) for three years under a health board-run pilot project in Castlebar.
However, the Western Health Board (WHB) recently decided to reorganise the way in which ADHD services are delivered. It said the service should not be provided in isolation but rather within the overall child and adolescent psychiatric service. This, it said, was in line with the recommendations of a Department of Health working group which reported in 2001.
However, the Mayo ADHD parents support group said its children would be disadvantaged by the move. Spokeswoman Caroline Joyce said parents feared their children, who were being treated by Dr McAndrew, would now have to join the general queue for child and adolescent psychiatric services.
She said Dr McAndrew gave an excellent service. Her 10-year-old son has ADHD and since he started attending her clinic, he has shown a marked improvement. Before attending the clinic, Ms Joyce spent years trying to find treatment for him. He was "smashing up" her house. Now he is doing well and attending his local school.
"It's absolutely disgraceful that the service is now going," she said.
A mother of a child with ADHD told The Irish Times that her child was given an emergency GP referral to the child psychiatric service in Mayo 18 months ago and had still not been called for an appointment.
Asked about the waiting time to be seen by its child and adolescent mental health teams, the WHB said waiting times "can vary from less than one day to longer periods depending on the severity of the disorder and the resources available to the child and adolescent mental health teams".
Priority, it said, was given to children with suicidal behaviour, depression, eating disorders, psychotic disorders and children under six years.
It added: "In some areas of the service where there have been recruitment difficulties, some children and families have been waiting for longer than the desirable period."
Asked what was the longest waiting time, the health board said it was six months in Galway but could not say what the longest waiting time was in Mayo. It said there were 82 children on the waiting list in Mayo and 79 in Galway. There are no children on the waiting list in Roscommon.
The health board emphasised that the ADHD service in Mayo was not ending, rather it was being integrated into the overall child and adolescent psychiatric service. "Arising from the complex and multifaceted nature of ADHD, a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach is required for assessment and management," it said.
Members of the multidisciplinary team would include a psychologist, child psychiatrist, social worker, nurse, speech and language therapist, occupational therapist and child care worker, it said. Ms Joyce said however that there was no child psychologist in Mayo. The health board said one would be appointed shortly. "Existing multidisciplinary team levels fall short of national and international requirements but the health board is recruiting additional staff where possible," the WHB said.