WITH almost one in four Limerick children in need of mental health services waiting more than a year for an appointment, a local Senator has called out the Government for failing to provide a dedicated path six years after it was promised.
Castleconnell-based Sinn Féin Senator Paul Gavan has highlighted the failure of Government to implement the Pathfinder Unit for Youth Mental Health Services, which is affecting waiting times and services for young people in crisis in Limerick.
Speaking at a commencement matter in the Seanad, Senator Gavan said: “The report of the task force on youth mental health was published in 2017. Subsequently there was a commitment by the Government to set up a pathfinder unit for youth mental health.”
“Six years later, there has been no action by the Minister of State’s Department to deliver on this commitment.”
Pathfinder is a programme which is currently being successfully implemented to maximise the use of emergency response medics to help keep elderly people in need of physical medical care out of hospital emergency departments.
Senator Gavin claimed that “some 22 per cent of children in community healthcare area CHO 3, which covers Limerick, are waiting longer than a year for their first appointment. Jigsaw in Limerick has waiting times of around 18 weeks, nearly five months for a young person in crisis to be able to get some support.”
He also called for the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) to be extended to help young people up to the age of 25, “by which age 75 per cent of chronic mental ill-health has been established. Provision should also be made for child counselling in primary care.”
“I want to stress the importance of setting up the Pathfinder unit as a matter of urgency at a time when youth mental health services in this country are wholly inadequate and in a state beyond crisis point.
“Organisations such as the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Mental Health Reform, BeLonG To Youth Services, and Spunout.ie … have continuously highlighted how children and young people have been seriously impacted by delays in access and lack of resources in mental health services in Ireland,” he concluded.
