I am very pleased to support this motion. It contains some excellent proposals, many of which I know the Minister of State would take on board and agree with. It recalls the commitment in the Government's mental health policy, Sharing the Vision: a Mental Health Policy for Everyone, to provide appropriate mental health emergency facilities in every hospital. It calls on the Government to require every model 3 and 4 hospital to have a dedicated mental health emergency room separate from chaotic emergency departments. I know the Minister of State is familiar with the situation in my county of Wexford, one of the most populous counties in the region, heading for 180,000 people. There is a terrific general hospital there but simply no facility to cater, from an acute point of view, for people with mental health difficulties. If you arrive between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. in Wexford General Hospital, you will be seen by a psychiatric nurse and excellent staff working to the pin of their collar but after 5.30 p.m., there is nobody. At weekends, there is nobody; you will be seen on Monday. You may be referred to the psychiatric unit in University Hospital Waterford but, as the Minister of State knows, while the staff are doing an excellent job there, it is not fit for purpose. It is not fit to meet the needs of the entire region, responsibility for which, essentially, has been forced upon it. I am told that if you are referred by a doctor or a hospital to the HSE unit in Summerhill in Wexford, you might have to wait up to three months to receive an appointment. I am also told that there is an excellent psychiatrist there - I wrote to the Minister of State about this recently – who has not been retained by the HSE. Whether that is the physician's personal choice or is down to the fact that she simply has not been retained by the HSE, the matter needs to be investigated nonetheless. I have been contacted by numerous families and parents who stated that this person really provided excellent care for the people in her care. There is no sign of the promised 54-bed unit in Waterford coming on stream. What we require in Wexford, which has a population of 180,000, is a dedicated ten-bed unit adjoining Wexford General Hospital and operating in conjunction with the acute facilities there. There is an urgent need for such a unit. Wexford is a county that is above the national average in terms of the rate of suicide. There is a serious mental health crisis in County Wexford. There is also a serious crisis in CAMHS in County Wexford in the context of mental health. I was recently approached by two young people who gave testimonies to me, which I will send on to the Minister of State, which decried the care they received. I know we will always get good and bad, and we probably hear more about the bad. Where people are not being cared for in the manner you would expect, however, particularly when it comes to CAMHS, there is a need for change. About 13 years ago, I and some of my friends in Wexford town, led by a man called Frank Flanagan, set up a group called Wexford MarineWatch. Very simply, we do suicide prevention patrols around Wexford Harbour and in the Wexford Bridge area. There was almost an epidemic of people using Wexford Bridge for self-harm or attempted suicide. We have literally encountered hundreds of people since our establishment. In some instances, we give these people vouchers to attend It’s Good to Talk counselling in Wexford town - we have come to an arrangement in that regard – and this has worked very well. However, we have also seen situations where we intervened with people and where gardaí came along and cared very well for them and where those individuals were brought to Waterford and were discharged the next day. This was despite the fact they were clearly in crisis. As stated said, it is my belief and that of many people in Wexford who have had interactions with the psychiatric unit in Waterford that the latter is not fit to meet the demand that exists across the region. We worked very closely with Waterford Marine Search and Rescue, which has been very helpful. The Minister of State will agree that it terrific work. We assisted Claddagh Watch in Galway with its establishment. The intervention of these organisations opens our eyes to the reality of what is happening on the ground in terms of people who are in crisis. Ours is only one organisation. The ten-bed acute unit for Wexford General Hospital is not too much to ask for in the context of the mental health crisis our county is facing and for the county's population of 180,000. I ask the Minister of State to please intervene and provide that unit for the people of Wexford.

Sentiment score: 0.03