January 23, 2012
Mental Health Service
Experts say mental hospital must close
Irish Examiner, 20-Jan-2012
A psychiatric hospital serving a major city is unfit for purpose and should be closed down, experts have warned. It is the second year in a row that the Mental Health Commission has called for the winding up of St Joseph's Hospital in Limerick, which is housed in a 187-year-old building first earmarked for closure in 2002. Two of the four wards were closed last year.
Frontline services to suffer as 3,200 leave
Irish Examiner, 17-Jan-2012
Frontline services will be hit by a further planned reduction of 3,200 staff this year, the chief executive of the HSE has admitted. Cathal Magee said that about 85% of all staff who worked in the health system provided frontline services. The HSE warned in its national service plan for 2012 that it would be impossible to avoid an impact on frontline services. "One cannot absorb that level of resource reduction without impacting on the delivery system," said Mr Magee yesterday.
Kenny urges elderly not to protest over health cuts
Irish Examiner, 18-Jan-2012
Enda Kenny urged sick and elderly people not to demonstrate in the streets against health cuts which he claimed are unavoidable. The Taoiseach was responding to opposition warnings that the Government was putting vulnerable people in danger, especially pensioners, because of its spending priorities. Mr Kenny said he remembered the scenes of elderly people, including those in wheelchairs, protesting against proposed medical card changes in 2008.
Mental Health
Parents now 'less tolerant of disabled children in same class'
Irish Independent, 20-Jan-2012
More than one in five people say they would object if a pupil with an intellectual disability or autism was in the same class as their child. The disturbing statistic marks a growing level of intolerance of these children in the education system. Just one in 12 said they would object when a similar study was carried out in 2006.
Minister reaffirms commitment to mental health reform
Cork Independent, 19-Jan-2012
Mental Health Minister Kathleen Lynch this week committed to closing down long-term residential psychiatric units Including Carralg Mar In ShanaMel. The Cork-based Minister of State also said proposed changes to mental health laws will come before the Oireachtas "in late spring" this year. Minister Lynch told the Cork Independent that an additional €35 million per year will allow for larger institutions to be closed and replaced with community-based ones.
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Rapid treatment of psychosis effective
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Irish Times 20th Jan 2012
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Early treatment for those with schizophrenia and other psychoses improves recovering times, a new report has found. The report, launched yesterday by the Minister of State for Mental Health, Kathleen Lynch, evaluated the work of the Dublin and East Treatment and Early Care Team service (Detect).
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Suicide
Most suicides linked to drink problems
Irish Examiner, 18-Jan-2012
Two-thirds of people who died by suicide in Cork City and county over a 30-month period had shown signs of problem drinking, a study has shown. The research also shows that more than half of the 190 people who died by suicide in Co Cork between September 2008 and March of last year had experienced some form of relationship difficulty in the year before they died. The study is to be published by the Cork-based National Suicide Research Foundation in the coming months.
