The HSE has spent almost \u20ac33 million over the past three years sending a small number of Irish people abroad for psychiatric care.<\/p>\n
The annual cost per patient has been in the region of \u20ac1.26 million, according to data released under FOI.<\/p>\n
Yearly spending has also surged in recent years, rising from \u20ac4.4 million in 2022 to \u20ac12.3 million the following year.<\/p>\n
A further \u20ac10.6 million was spent by the HSE on psychiatric care abroad in 2024, and \u20ac9.98 million last year.<\/p>\n
Over the past eleven years, payments to providers of specialised mental health treatment have totalled \u20ac45 million.<\/p>\n
The figures show, however, that the number of patients sent abroad each year has remained in single digits, despite the dramatic rise in spending.<\/p>\n
Last year, the cost per patient for the eight individuals treated was \u20ac1.25 million, according to the figures.<\/p>\n
For 2024, the average bill for the nine people cared for overseas was slightly lower at \u20ac1.18 million.<\/p>\n
However, in 2023, the highest figure of all was recorded when the cost per patient worked out at a staggering \u20ac1.36 million.<\/p>\n
All of the patients were treated at facilities in the United Kingdom, but the HSE said it would not provide a breakdown by hospital or city.<\/p>\n
They also said it would not be possible to provide the number of patients treated in some years because of the risk of identification.<\/p>\n
The Health Service Executive said patients could be sent overseas for a number of reasons, for example, if specialist mental health treatment is required but is unavailable in Ireland.<\/p>\n
In the period between 2015 and 2024, 21 referrals were made from HSE Mental Health Services and 16 from acute hospitals.<\/p>\n
A statement said: \u201cThe HSE Treatment abroad scheme covers the cost of planned treatment in another country in the European Union European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or Switzerland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the treatment needed is publicly available in Ireland, it can be accessed through the: Northern Ireland Planned Healthcare Scheme (NIPHS) or Cross Border Directive Scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The HSE has spent almost \u20ac33 million over the past three years sending a small number of Irish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134,554,555,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-358873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}