Urgent action is needed to address waiting lists for Child and Adolescent Mental Health services in Ireland, according to Donegal Deputy Pearse Doherty.
The matter was raised in the Dáil today when Deputy Doherty highlighted the serious risks of leaving children and young people waiting for extended periods for mental health care.
The waiting list for CAMHS services across the State stood at over 2,700 children and young adults in mid-2018.
The CHO1 area – which includes Donegal – had a waiting list of 203 young people awaiting initial assessments at the end of last year.
Pearse Doherty TD says ‘drastically inadequate staffing levels’ are making it impossible to meet the demand for care.
He said: “CAMHS is simply not meeting the needs of young people who are often in very desperate need immediate care. This is due primarily due to the failure to recruit the staff needed to fully operate CAMHS teams and for some time, around half of the positions in CAMHS teams have been vacant.
“The Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Mental Healthcare outlined earlier this year a raft of measures to improve the recruitment and retention of vital staff. By filling vacancies quickly and improving conditions we can begin to improve services, attract more staff and keep the excellent staff we already have.
“We cannot allow a situation to persist, where if a child or young person needs care; they are going to face an extended waiting period which puts them and their mental health at a very serious risk.
“We need to see dedicated action in the area of mental health to attract new staff, to keep the excellent staff we have and reduce waiting times.
“There were promises made by the government last year that the disastrous staffing gap in CAMHS would be addressed, but it hasn’t been. So I am urging the government to re-commit to doing and to ensure this actually happens without delay.”
