Sir, – Padraig O'Morain (Health, December 12th) is right to say that we are failing our young people in relation to mental health services. GPs are the biggest providers of mental health services in the country, and have noticed a surge in such problems in young people under 25 in recent years.
This is particularly problematic in areas of disadvantage where rates of mental health problems are far higher, yet services are much worse (because they are distributed by population numbers and not needs).
Every day in my practice myself or one of my colleagues encounters a young person in distress. In a period of just two weeks in November I encountered four young people under 25 expressing serious suicidality.
We will refer someone who is an active suicide risk to adult or children’s mental health services, but apart from that we have nowhere to refer a child under 12 (except child psychology, but there is a two-year wait making it effectively meaningless).
The two excellent local family therapy services are closed to referrals except to Tusla.
For those over 12, the waiting time for our local Jigsaw is three months, which is a long time for someone who may be unable to leave the house or go to school because of anxiety.
Pieta House will respond to people if they are expressing thoughts of self- harm, but there is none local to our area.
There is one service that’s very fast and accessible however, and that’s the delivery of cannabis. It’s available on every street corner or at the touch of a speed dial, and many of our distressed young people are availing of this as their coping strategy, in the absence of any other service.
These service providers are very efficient at offering credit (as well as other drug options) and even better at collecting, leading to threats to families and criminality among young people.
Before long they get to experience the criminal justice system, where the State that can’t find the money to fund mental health services can suddenly spend €70,000 a year on a prison place.
Padraig O’ Morain is right to say we need to treat this like the trolley crisis. Mental health problems early in life are a powerful predictor of similar problems in adulthood, as well as a higher risk of serious physical illnesses. We are already reaping a bitter harvest from our neglect. – Yours, etc,
Dr EDEL McGINNITY,
Riverside Medical Centre,
Dublin 15.