Mental health services must be 'based on need and not where you live' - Martin Browne

Tipperary Sinn Féin TD Martin Browne has said that mental health services must be 'based on need and not where you live'.

Teachta Browne was speaking following the publication of Sinn Fein’s Mental Health Action Plan, and amidst an ongoing lack of state-provided acute settings and supports.

Teachta Browne said: “Decades of crisis management and underinvestment in community-based and proactive mental health care has profound effects on communities.

“In Tipperary this has resulted in a reliance on the community and voluntary mental health sector to provide vital services for people that otherwise would not be seen in the public system. The work carried out by these organisations is invaluable. They have become an indispensable part of our mental health network.

“But in addition to these services, we need to see a mental health strategy that looks at the needs of our communities and provides them with the services they need and deserve.

“We need to move away from the approach we have become used to seeing – one based on crisis management and continued underinvestment. Instead, we need to see a return of community-based, proactive care that has long-term planning, multi-annual funding and crucially, workforce planning.

“Workforce planning is an issue that prevails across the country, and Tipperary is no exception. Take Jigsaw in Tipperary. The Clonmel outreach service for young people has been beset with staffing and recruitment difficulties which impacted the provision of services.

“Outreach in North Tipperary outside of Thurles also remains an ambition due to a lack of resources and access to adequate clinical staffing.

“This is just an example of what the people of Tipperary are contending with.

“The possibility of the HSE assisting in providing a Pieta House outreach service in the west Tipperary area is something I have also been working on, but to-date, the HSE appears to be dragging its heels on this, and funding remains an issue.

“Mental Health difficulties do not just occur between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday. A&E is not the most appropriate place for people in a crisis. Sinn Féin would develop a mix of 24/7, community-based multi-disciplinary services to provide rapid assessment and support to people who are in a mental health crisis.

“We would also provide funding for suicide crisis assessment nurses in Emergency Departments and in Primary Care in line with the National Clinical programme on Self Harm and Suicide Reduction.

“There is also a need for the return of inpatient services in Co Tipperary. While we have seen the opening of Haven House as a step-up and step-down support, there is a case to be made for the reinstatement of inpatient beds which were wrongly withdrawn from Clonmel in 2012.

“For too long, mental health has been treated as secondary to physical health. I believe fundamentally in parity of esteem when it comes to both. It is now time for action to be taken.”