There is frustration after Letterkenny University Hospital was overlooked from the rollout of 10 specialist mental health nursing teams across the country.
Minister for Mental Health, Mary Butler TD announced the commencement of recruitment for the teams that will, according to the announcement, “strengthen crisis supports out-of-hours in emergency departments across the country.
Recruitment is now progressing, with the Health Service Executive (HSE) and hospital management working to have the new teams operational as soon as possible.
The 10 hospitals who will receive a new team of four – two advanced nurse practitioners and two clinical nurse specialists – are: Tallaght University Hospital; St James’s Hospital; Mater Hospital; Beaumont Hospital; St Vincent’s University Hospital; Waterford University Hospital; University Hospital Limerick; Cork University Hospital; Mercy University Hospital; and University Hospital Galway.
“Letterkenny University Hospital is a major hospital and the only one in Donegal,” Letterkenny-based Sinn Féin Councillor Gerry McMonagle told Donegal Daily.
Councillor McMonagle is the Vice Chair of the Regional Health Forum West and North West.
He said: “The amount of times that Letterkenny hospital is in the top three for being overcrowded in the emergency department and with people waiting on beds, we would need that psychiatric support.
“If you look at the last Garda statistics, there were significant increases in the amount of people being detained under the Mental Health Act. There is no weekend cover for psychiatric supports in Letterkenny – which is one of the busiest model 3 hospitals in the country – and I would have thought that we would have been considered.
“This is something that has been raised regularly about psychiatric intervention at the ED. While we do have some sort of response when people present with mental health issues, we don’t at the weekends.”