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997 psychiatric beds for entire country is a national scandal – McGrath

Independent TD Mattie McGrath has said that figures provided to him by the HSE Mental Health Services reveal a year on year decrease in the number of Acute Inpatient psychiatric beds. Deputy McGrath was speaking after the information which he sought through a Parliamentary Question showed that there are currently just 21.7 beds per 100,000 of the population:

“These statistics cut through the Government blather regarding its commitment to mental health services in this country.  They show that for every year from 2010-2015 there has been a marked decline in the number of Acute psychiatric beds available.

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In 2010 there were 1,187 beds while in 2015 that number has dropped dramatically to 997.

There is simply no justification for the savage nature of these cuts.

Minister of State Kathleen Lynch will no doubt say that the drop has been matched by extra resources being put into community care programmes.

This is total nonsense as anyone in South Tipperary who has tried to access the chaotic mental health services here will tell you.

Ever since the closure of St Michael’s Psychiatric Unit in Clonmel and the transfer and centralising of services to Kilkenny, we have witnessed the total degradation of psychiatric care.

This is to say nothing of the fact that the families who do end up accessing the services for their loved ones must then effectively abandon them to loneliness and isolation in Kilkenny because of the distances involved.

It is time this Government got honest with the people and came clean about the true state of psychiatric care afforded to such patients in this country,” concluded Deputy McGrath.