One fifth of Irish children, some 200,000, have a mental or behavioural disorder at any one time but there is a serious lack of psychiatric services for them, according to a report released today.
Dr Brendan Doody of the Irish College of Psychiatrists, the group that prepared the report, said one child in 10 will suffer from a moderate to severe disorder and that these disorders include depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, eating disorders and psychotic disorders.
Dr Doody said that there are currently 55 whole-time equivalent consultant child and adolescent psychiatry posts in the Republic, a ratio of 1:16,150 of the population under 16 years of age, whereas in Finland this ratio is 1:6000.
The report claims that a comprehensive service for young people up to the age of 18 years would require a total of 150 consultant child and adolescent psychiatry posts and multidisciplinary teams and that this could be achieved with an extra annual expenditure of approximately €80 million and a capital investment of approximately €150 million.
From 1997 to 2003 spending on mental health services fell from 11 per cent to just 6.8 per cent of the health budget (amounting to €622.8 million in 2003). Child and adolescent psychiatric services account for only 5-10 per cent of spending on mental health services, while serving 22.68 per cent of the population (around €53 per child under 16 years of age).
Amnesty International, which published a report on mental health services for children in 2003, expressed concern at the "inaction of Government" on children's mental health.
Legal and research officer, Fiona Crowley, told ireland.comthat children's in-patient units promised by the Government since 2001 were still at planning stages and "existed only on paper".
"Today's report clearly outlines that there has been very little advance in treatment responses for children with mental health problems. In 1998 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child was very critical of mental health services and programmes for children and their families in Ireland. The Irish Government is due to report to that committee next year and Amnesty will be bringing its concerns and the contents of this report to its attention," she said.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said that the future direction and delivery of all aspects of Ireland's mental health services, including the availability of psychiatric services for children and adults, will be considered in the context of the work of the Expert Group on Mental Health Policy.
The Expert Group on Mental Health Policy was established in 2003 to prepare a new national policy framework for the mental health services updating the 1984 policy document "Planning for the Future". A number of sub-groups within the Expert Group are looking at issues in the mental health services, including a sub-group on Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The group is due to complete its work in 2005.