ONE THIRD OF the State’s child and adolescent psychiatric beds are not open for use because of staff shortages, according to new figures.

Responding to a parliamentary question posed by Sinn Féin TD Louise O’Reilly, the HSE said the four Child and Adolescent Mental Health Units, based in Cork, Galway and Dublin, have a combined capacity of 74 beds.

At present, only 50 of these beds are open “due to staff shortages”. The HSE said it expects that these units will increase their capacity in September with recruitment of graduate nurses and continued efforts to recruit consultant psychiatric positions in two of the units.

There are currently 13 vacant CAMHS consultant psychiatric posts across the country in total.

The HSE also revealed that wait times for a Jigsaw counselling appointment are 13 weeks in Tallaght, Dublin, and ten weeks in counties like Cork and Meath. Wait times are lower in Offaly and Roscommon – three weeks for each – and just one week in Kerry.

“Every young person who is referred and for whose needs the service is appropriate is offered an appointment date. The target is to offer every young person an appointment within 20 working days (4 working weeks) of the date of referral,” the HSE said.

Jigsaw monitor activity levels to ensure that they are working to capacity and offering as many appointments as possible. In the year to date (Jan to June) they achieved 95% of their target in terms of number of appointments offered. However, demand for services continues to grow (47% increase in referrals compared with the same period last year).

O’Reilly who is Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on health said the recruitment and retention crisis in our health service is” having a devastating impact on child and adolescent psychiatry”.

This is an area where there are 2,700 children waiting to be seen by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services yet there is a staggering 13 vacant consultant posts and a shortage of psychiatric nurses.

“Every expert in Child and Adolescent Mental Health will tell you that early intervention is absolutely vital in avoiding enduring and worsening problems in the future,” she said.

“Every week that a young person with a mental health problem goes untreated is doing serious damage.”

The party’s spokesperson on mental health Pat Buckley also expressed concern about wait times. “When a child or young person seeks out care they are in all likelihood going to be faced with extended waiting periods which are simply unacceptable and put them and their mental health at a very serious risk.”

When CAMHS and Jigsaw are able to assess and care for young people they do an excellent job with often very good results. This is not possible because of shortages which have been created by years of neglect of the services and very little action to resolve it.

It cannot be stressed enough the human cost this neglect is causing today and into the future for many young people, their families and their communities. This is quite literally life saving treatment and it is not available for those that need it.

Additional CAMHS in-patient capacity will be provided in the new National Children’s Hospital with 20 beds in 2022 and an additional 10 forensic CAMHS unit is currently under construction in St Ita’s, due to open in 2020.