Psych Observer – Exposing Bad Psychiatry

Eilish O’Regan Health Correspondent | Irish Independent News Ireland

MORE than 1,100 psychiatric patients are being held in damp, drab conditions in old-style hospitals that are in dire need of modernisation.

And the scandal is made all the worse as the patients are forced to endure decrepit and Dickensian surroundings in hospitals situated on valuable land, which could be sold to raise funds to improve their living conditions.

The annual report of the Inspectorate of Mental Hospitals of the Mental Health Commission published yesterday painted a grim picture of life inside our psychiatric hospitals.

Dr Siobhan Barry of the Irish Psychiatric Association last night expressed alarm at conditions outlined in “blackspot” hospitals. Some of these were so bad that she has urged the the State watchdog, the Mental Health Commission, to shut them down.

The report expressed serious concerns about St Loman’s in Mullingar, St Davnet’s in Monaghan, St Brendan’s and St Ita’s in Dublin, and St Joseph’s in Limerick.

St Ita’s, which is home to 124 patients, was found to be damp, with paint peeling from the walls. Other areas were dirty. In one ward, residents’ clothing was stored on open rails because there was not enough individual wardrobe space.

In Willowbrook, a rehabilitation unit, there was no proper covering for the windows. Curtains were falling down and in one ward the bed curtains were not functioning properly, the report found.

Conditions in St Loman’s were found to very poor, with damp, peeling paint, tiles lifting off floors, poor sanitary facilities, curtains falling down and drab and institutional style furnishings and decor.

“The structural fabric of these hospitals was poor and there was a running battle to keep ahead of the damp, mould, falling plaster and peeling paint,” Assistant Inspector Dr Susan Finnerty said.

The report added: “These conditions were highlighted in the 2006 report and by previous inspectors, but little action has been taken.

“A number of commitments were given over the years to address some of these deficiencies.”

Dr Finnerty is also seriously concerned at the practice of moving patients from these institutions to larger, 24-hour supervised community residences accommodating up to 20 people, more than twice the appropriate number.

“The danger of such large residences is that they become ‘wards in the community’ and continue the institutional practices of long-stay hospital care, especially where rehabilitation services and inputs from multidisciplinary teams are missing,” Dr Finnerty added.

She pointed out that it would be cheaper to put a higher number of patients in these community residences rather than setting up a number of smaller ones, which would be most costly and require more staff.

The report also pointed to the large numbers of people with an intellectual disability and mental illness who are inappropriately placed in psychiatric hospitals such as St Senan’s in Wexford, St Luke’s Hospital Clonmel and St Finan’s Hospital, Killarney.

It found there are no specialist multi-disciplinary teams for people with an intellectual disability and consultant psychiatrists are working in isolation.

Chairman of the Mental Health Commission Dr Edmond O’Dea said last year was a missed opportunity to progress the Government’s blueprint for the improvement of mental health services, ‘A Vision for Change’.

Mr O’Dea added that moves toward a quality national service remained “piecemeal and painfully slow”, and in many areas people suffering from a mental illness are still unable to secure access to basic mental health care.

- Eilish O’Regan Health Correspondent

URL: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/scandal-of-our-dirty-hospitals-1391854.html