By Dionne Meehan
CHILDREN in Donegal have been left waiting months for urgent mental health support due to a backlog in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).
This comes after it was revealed this week that Community Healthcare Organisation (CHO) 1, which includes Donegal, had the fifth highest waiting list for CAMHS in the country last year.
Addressing the Dáil on Tuesday, Independent TD for Donegal, Thomas Pringle said a child should never be forced to wait this long for a vital service.
“I have been contacted by a parent in Donegal who has been seeking urgent services for her young child for a year and has been waiting for a first appointment with CAMHS for months,” he said.
“It should never be the case that parents are left without the option of getting the child the help they need.”
Calling for the urgent regulation and reform of CAMHS, Deputy Pringle spoke of how concerned parents in Donegal are doing “all they can” to secure vital services for children.
This is becoming increasingly more difficult following last month’s news that the Raphoe Diocesan Pastoral Service, Donegal’s only child and adolescent counselling service, is being forced to close.
Director of Counselling, Liam Cannon is urgently seeking assistance in a bid to keep their doors open.
Following numerous meetings, the service managed to gain the support of Tusla.
And although this news is welcomed, without the commitment and support of the HSE, vital services and counsellors remain in limbo.
Mr Cannon hopes the decision will not be put “on the long finger”.
“We gave mid-March for shutting the services.
“We have counsellors that still don’t know what the future holds for them.
“We have clients in counselling that are preparing to end and some of them wouldn’t actually be ready to finish, they would need more work,” he said.
Calling for clarity from the HSE, Mr Cannon spoke of the huge demand for this service.
“The services are there right around the county only because we were asked to go and set up in those areas, there is huge demand for it.
“We are the only providers of child and adolescent counselling in the county. When you take that out of the county, where do young people go, where do children go?”
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