Mental health industry watchdogs said aging facilities mean patients in acute mental distress are safer in the community than in most specialized mental health treatment centers.
The state’s mental health services inspector, Professor Jim Lucey, said some of the centres designed to treat people with the most severe mental illnesses were “unsafe”.
Of the state’s 66 registered mental health centers, one-third failed to meet the 80 percent minimum standard last year. Of those, 22 are run by the Department of Health Services, 14 of which are in the state.
“It’s not a trivial issue, it’s not a trivial issue. It’s a minimum standard,” Prof Lucey said. “We’re talking about standards that are about ensuring safety, about the ability to actually protect people from the risk of acute mental health disorders.”
“It should be a safer place than the community. But if the center is overcrowded, if there’s an invasion of privacy, if people don’t have access to the time and space for the mental health care they need, if there are really barriers everywhere, and frankly, if it’s not clean, then it’s not a therapeutic environment.”
Prof Lucey, who works for the Mental Health Commission (MHC), said people in Ireland have a “good understanding of what mental health spaces mean”.
“But when you go into these centres, they’re crowded and, frankly, unsafe,” he added.
Professor Lucey said mental health was “the number one health issue in this country” with great potential for recovery if treatment services were provided. “It is certainly the biggest unmet need. It is the most common cause of death for people under 50 in this country, currently matched only by deaths from road traffic accidents,” he said.
He praised frontline workers at these centres, saying they were doing a fantastic job, but said a lack of both funding and staffing meant patients were not receiving “optimal” care.
In a statement after the publication of the commission’s 2023 annual report last month, an HSE spokesman said “significant investment” had been made in mental health over the past three years.
“€29.6 million has been allocated for 2024 as part of the capital budget, which is an increase from the €27.32 million allocated for 2023 and the €17.91 million allocated for 2022,” she said. “We know there are areas where further improvement is needed and HSE Mental Health is developing a detailed action plan in response to the MHC findings.”
A Department of Health spokesman said: “We are committed to working with the HSE to improve access to acute mental health care services.”
