{"id":496020,"date":"2026-06-12T12:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/496020\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T12:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:34:08","slug":"more-than-1000-young-people-in-cork-and-kerry-waiting-on-mental-health-checks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/496020\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 1,000 young people in Cork and Kerry waiting on mental health checks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">More than 1,000 young people across Cork and Kerry are awaiting appointments with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs), with a third of those waiting for more than a year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The figures have prompted a call for renewed and urgent action to address growing pressures on youth\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41860107.html\">mental health<\/a> services across the region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">At the latest Regional Health Forum a\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41860728.html\">HSE<\/a> spokesperson confirmed there are 1,054 children waiting to receive care under Camhs across the southern region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Of these 351 have been waiting for longer than a year, 152 between nine and 12 months, 155 between six and nine months, 196 between three and six months, and 200 waiting up to three months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Long waits<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">The spokesperson said across all mental health services within the region, the most significant pressure is within Camhs \u201cwhere both the absolute numbers and the proportion of long waits \u2014 over 12 months \u2014 are highest\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cHSE South West continues to implement a range of measures to improve access to mental health services, including ongoing recruitment initiatives, enhanced triage, and prioritisation processes, targeted waiting list initiatives and service redesign programmes across both Camhs and adult services.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Significant gaps<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The chair of the health forum, Labour Party councillor Peter Horgan, said despite these measures, \u201csignificant gaps remain in service accessibility, early intervention, and targeted outreach for younger cohorts\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cWe need an urgent conversation, especially in the area of young males, who continue to be disproportionately affected by mental health challenges and suicide risk\u201d Mr Horgan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            \u201cThere is a need to engage with all people, but young men in particular, who we know are less likely to seek help and more likely to present in emergency situations. When you look at the gaps in genuine support models for young men, the numbers presented are stark.\u201d\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">He said service deficits in Cork and Kerry reflect broader national challenges, showcasing the need for \u201cregionally responsive solutions\u201d, such as strengthened school-based mental health supports, expanded outreach programmes, and improved integration between primary care, community organisations, and specialist HSE mental health services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1,000 young people across Cork and Kerry are awaiting appointments with the Child and Adolescent Mental&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[15607,79,103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-496020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-cork-health","tag-cork-news","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}