{"id":655133,"date":"2026-10-15T03:50:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T03:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655133\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T03:50:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T03:50:19","slug":"inspection-found-children-left-very-hungry-at-cork-mental-health-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655133\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspection found children left \u2018very hungry\u2019 at Cork mental health facility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">A lack of access to food left residents at a Cork in-patient mental health centre for children and adolescents \u201cvery hungry\u201d , a report has found.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">An inspection of the\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41800823.html\">Eist Linn centre<\/a> in Bessborough by the Mental Health Commission found service capacity had been reduced due to significant staffing shortages across multiple disciplines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">To mitigate the risks, operational bed capacity was cut from 16 to 10 beds, and out-of-hours admissions were suspended.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The report found there were 10 vacant nursing posts, with the service relying on agency staff and overtime to maintain adequate staffing levels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">One of two social worker posts had been vacant since December 2024, while both consultant psychiatrist posts had been unfilled since November 2025 and January 2026. A part-time pharmacist position had been vacant since January 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">While approval had been granted to recruit for the roles, and some appointments were at an advanced stage, management reported significant delays in progressing candidates through the final stages of the recruitment process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Restrictions on food<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Residents interviewed as part of the inspection said that they had enough to occupy themselves with during the day, and that activities offered were good. However, they reported a lack of variety in the food choices available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Residents reported that they sometimes felt \u201cvery hungry\u201d during the day due to heavy restrictions on food, and said they wanted greater flexibility around the provision of snacks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Overall, the centre was found to have one critical non-compliance, four high-risk non-compliances, and one moderate non-compliance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">This compares with four moderate and two high-risk non-compliances identified during the 2025 inspection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Found non-compliant<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The critical non-compliance related to the \u2018Code of Practice on Admission, Transfer, and Discharge\u2019, an area in which the centre has been found non-compliant at every annual inspection since 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The report also detailed how inspectors reviewed the clinical file of one young person admitted to the centre and found it had not been clinically determined that the patient required immediate in-patient mental health care.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">They also found the decision to admit the young person had not been made solely by a registered medical practitioner or consultant psychiatrist, as required.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">As the process for emergency admission to the approved centre was not followed, it was not determined if the young person was admitted to the approved centre most appropriate to meet their needs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The HSE, which manages the centre, said the admissions policy has been revised to clarify admission criteria, decision making responsibilities, escalation pathways, and governance requirements.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The revised policy will be circulated to all relevant clinical and management staff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n             The Echo contacted the HSE for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lack of access to food left residents at a Cork in-patient mental health centre for children and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15607,79,61,60,410,43],"class_list":["post-655133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-health","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655133","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=655133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}