by Louise Doyle
COMMUNITY Healthcare Organisation (CHO1), which includes Donegal, has the fifth highest waiting list for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the country.
A total of 367 young people are on waiting lists in CHO1, the fifth highest from nine CHOs in the country.
CHO1 includes Donegal, Monaghan, Sligo, Leitrim and Cavan.
According to the HSE, there are 4,361 young people on waiting lists for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Ireland.
The figures come after the Inspector of Mental Health Services last month told parents that she couldn’t provide an assurance to them “that their children have access to safe, effective and evidence-based mental health service”.
Dr Susan Finnerty’s final report on the provision of CAMHS found discrepancies between wait times and experiences of children suffering from mental illness, depending on where they were in the country.
New figures provided by the HSE to the Irish Independent found that Cork and Kerry community healthcare organisations still had the longest CAMHS waiting list in the country, with 976 young people currently waiting for help.
The two areas with the lowest waiting lists in the country were Galway, Roscommon and Mayo, which had a waiting list of 288.
Dr Finnerty’s report into CAMHS further outlined how how long waiting lists is one of the reasons why it felt the rights of children with mental illness were being breached.
It found that while waiting lists had decreased in some parts of the country, it had increased in others.
The report also suggested that children may have been suffering from a ‘postcode lottery’ when it came to waiting lists for CAMHS.
“There was a large unacceptable variation in both the number of children on waiting lists and the length of those waiting lists both across CHOs and internally within CHOs.”
Concerns have also been raised by Donegal-born Ombudsman, Dr Niall Muldoon, who has accused the State of what he has described as a “profound violation of children’s rights” regarding mental health and disability care.
Dr Muldoon made his feelings clear in a missive to the new Chief Executive of the Health Service Executive, Bernard Gloster.
In his letter, Dr Muldoon criticised the HSE , saying it had “seriously failed in its duty to uphold the rights to children, to the best possible healthcare”.
The letter, dated March 2023, was seen by the Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act.
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