Anger over mental health bed closures

A GOVERNMENT minister has responded to concerns over bed closures at a child and adolescent mental health services unit on the Southside of the city.

In a statement, the Minister for Mental Health, Helen McEntee, insisted that any patients discharged from the Linn Dara unit at Cherry Orchard in Ballyfermot will be discharged for clinical reasons only.

In recent weeks, as patients were discharged from Linn Dara for clinical reasons, the beds were not refilled due to staff shortages. This had left the facility with just half of its 22 beds occupied.

Speaking following a visit to the state-of-the-art unit last week, the Minister said: “Unfortunately there are significant staffing difficulties at the Linn Dara facility. 

“I am in regular contact with the HSE in relation to the difficulties and I can assure people that intensive efforts are underway to maintain services at Linn Dara.

“The core issue facing the facility at present relates specifically to staff recruitment difficulties for mental health professionals, which unfortunately reflects wider health system recruitment and retention issues. I would like to stress that the problem facing Linn Dara does not relate to funding availability.” 

She added: “I would like to assure people that any discharges from Linn Dara are clinical decisions and are planned discharges. Nobody is being discharged in order to allow a bed to be closed.” 

Minister McEntee said intensive efforts were underway to increase staffing and allow more beds to be re-allocated.

“The HSE is currently actively engaged in a recruitment process and, in fact, a number of staff are confirmed to join the service in the near future,” she stated. “The HSE are exploring every option to try to ensure this excellent service remains fully operational. Staffing cover is currently being provided through methods such as staff working additional hours, overtime and agency staff. I would also like to reassure people that any beds forced to close temporarily will be reopened as soon as the staff are available.”

The minister appealed to psychiatric nurses to consider working at Linn Dara and called on the Psychiatric Nurses’ Association to do all they can to encourage their members to help deal with the staffing difficulties.

Local Fianna Fáil senator, Catherine Ardagh, called on Minister McEntee to reverse the decision to close 11 of the 22 beds at Linn Dara.

Senator Ardagh said: “We are now a full decade on from the publication of ‘A Vision for Change’, where the Government set out its strategy for the provision of mental health services and laid out the guidelines for best practice, and yet we still have not seen full implementation. This decision will have a major impact on the already under pressure mental health services in the greater Dublin area.” 

People Before Profit TD, Brid Smith, also criticised the closure of beds at the Cherry Orchard unit, saying it demonstrated the crisis in both mental health services and the wider national health service.

She claimed that the closure of beds was directly linked to the upcoming public sector pay talks and the inability of the Government to recruit and retain nurses. 

“This Government has spent so much time and effort attacking public sector workers and driving down pay and conditions,” Deputy Smith said. “This is the bitter fruit of those attacks – a health service in crisis that can’t staff beds for children and adolescents with mental health difficulties.”