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Mental hospital hit by jobs embargo

Friday, 26 June 2009

Management at the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum has warned that new patients will not be accepted if the Health Services Executive (HSE) does not lift a recruitment embargo at the facility. According to the trade union SIPTU, which represents the majority of staff at the institution, its members were “very concerned” at the decision to stop admissions. The union’s National Nursing official Louise O’Reilly claimed the hospital currently has 25 vacancies, most of which have occurred in the last six months. In a letter seen by Southside People, Paul Braham, who is Director of Nursing at the hospital, wrote to SIPTU outlining management's intention to stop accepting new admissions. In the letter, Mr Braham said management at the hospital had decided to reduce capacity at the facility by 16 beds because of staff shortages. He added that this could only be achieved if the hospital was closed to all further admissions. “We also explained in our letter that we expect future staff departures due to retirements during the course of the next six months and that the situation will continue to deteriorate if the recruitment moratorium remains in place,” he said. The letter added that as of June 15 the hospital “would no longer be in a position to meet its obligation under the Mental Health Act 2001 or the Criminal Law Insanity Act 2006”. The HSE told Southside People last week that it had made no decision to close any of the beds at the hospital or to stop accepting new patients. “The HSE is currently managing its staffing within the context of the overall Government moratorium on recruitment in the public service,” a spokesperson said. However, Louise O’Reilly said SIPTU members at the facility were “fearful” of the “serious situations” which could result from the decision of the hospital to cease accepting admissions. “In the letter, management has advised the union that it is closing admissions as a last resort because the hospital feels it has no other option,” she said. About 100 patients a year pass through the Central Mental Hospital, the State’s most secure therapeutic facility for psychiatric patients. It provides care in conditions of high, medium and low security for those transferred from prison, those found not guilty by reason of insanity and those transferred from local psychiatric hospitals in need of treatment in special conditions of security. Ms O’Reilly said there were established legal precedents to suggest that the Central Mental Hospital would have no option but to accept patients found not guilty by reason of insanity in criminal cases. “This begs the question of how they and other patients are to be treated and cared for if there are inadequate staffing levels,” she said. “It will also put additional pressures on the rest of the State’s psychiatric services and on the prison system when all those people requiring forensic psychiatric care cannot be accommodated in Dundrum.”