Politicians’ lip service to mental health crisis

Aren’t you sick of politicians using the nation’s mental health as an argument against lockdown and restrictions?

Obviously, it’s a rational argument. Opening gyms and churches and pubs and theatres and playgrounds and shops, and all of the places from where we derive pleasure, is, on balance, good for our overall wellness.

But it’s just the hypocrisy of it all that’s disgusting. The politicians, ordinarily, pay lip service to mental health.

So, for some of them to now turn around and feign interest in it as an issue, in order to give cover to their real agenda – opening up the economy and easing restrictions – is nauseating.

Let’s be clear. Arguing against lockdown is legitimate. Being a true advocate of mental health services is admirable. But stop weaponising mental health, for cheap political Brownie points.

The Government, through the Health Service Executive, allocated €18 million in its Winter Plan for Community Healthcare West. It was welcome.  But not a cent of it was for mental health services.

Pádraig Mulligan, assistant secretary of trade union Forsa, described it as “unacceptable” that the plan had “abandoned” vulnerable patients who require mental health services. He’s not wrong.

Councillor John Connolly (FF), one of the good guys, probed this matter further at a HSE West Regional Forum meeting. Figures given to Cllr Connolly reveal that while admissions to UHG’s Acute Adult Mental Health Unit fell between March and August of this year, probably due to Covid-19, they have since September returned to 2019 levels.

Pádraig Mulligan has said that psychiatric units like this should be operating at 80%, due to Covid, but they’re so busy they’re closer to 100%.

The capacity at the unit is 50; but the official figures reveal that occupancy rarely goes below 45. The nightly average in 2019 was 48 patients. This, according to Cllr Connolly, “may indicate concerns regarding capacity of the facility”. He puts emphasis on the word ‘may’.

That wouldn’t surprise Mr Mulligan, a man who vehemently, but ultimately unsuccessfully, campaigned against the closure of acute psychiatric beds in Ballinasloe.

The HSE told Cllr Connolly that last year, 1,761 patients were referred for a specialist psychiatric opinion at the Emergency Department of UHG; and just 301 of these were admitted to the Acute Adult Mental Health Unit.

That’s more than four in five patients who presented at ED complaining of a psychiatric illness who were discharged. The HSE said that 64% of the 1,761 – that’s 1,133 people – instead of being admitted to the psychiatric unit, were referred back to their Community Mental Health Team for follow-ups; and the others were sent to addiction services, community psychology, GPs and the private sector.

Cllr Connolly points out that it’s difficult to be explicit, based on this raw data alone, that there is an inadequacy in the AAMHU.

But anecdotally, service users, their family and friends, people working in mental health services locally, as well as in charities such as Pieta House (1800 247 247) and Samaritans (116 123), know that at least some of those 1,133 people who were not admitted to Adult Acute Mental Health Unit, are sadly no longer with us.

Think of them the next time politicians feign interest in mental health services, but, for example, fail to back that up with mental health funding in the Winter Plan.

(Photo: The UHG Adult Acute Mental Health Unit) For more Bradley Bytes, see this week's Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.