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A statue of Luke Kelly looks down towards an empty Kings Street, Dublin. Rollingnews

Covid-19 pandemic causing major disruptions to critical mental health services, WHO finds

The HSE’s winter plan has been criticised for not allocating enough funding towards mental health.

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC has significantly impacted mental health services around the globe, according to a survey carried out by the World Health Organisation, renewing calls for increased funding in the sector. 

The organisation urged world leaders to invest in “life-saving mental health programmes” as 93% of surveyed countries report a decline in access and an increase in demand for mental health services

The survey – conducted from June to August among 130 countries – aimed to evaluate how the provision of mental, neurological and substance use services has changed due to the pandemic and how countries are adapting to overcome these challenges.

The survey found the majority of countries had suffered widespread disruptions:

  • Over 60% reported disruptions to mental health services for vulnerable people, including children and adolescents (72%), older adults (70%), and women requiring antenatal or postnatal services (61%).
  • 67% saw disruptions to counselling and psychotherapy; 65% to critical harm reduction services; and 45% to opioid agonist maintenance treatment for opioid dependence.
  • 30% reported disruptions to access to medications for mental, neurological and substance use disorders.
  • Nearly three-quarters reported at least partial disruptions to school and workplace mental health services (78% and 75% respectively).

The survey also found significant disparities in the uptake of online services to in-person services despite 70% of countries introducing them. 

The organisation has recommended that countries allocate resources to mental health as an integral component of their response and recovery plans. 

Although 89% of countries reported in the survey that mental health and psychosocial support is part of their national Covid-19 response plans, only 17% of these countries have full additional funding for covering these activities.

“World leaders must move fast and decisively to invest more in life-saving mental health programmes ̶ during the pandemic and beyond,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organisation said this morning. 

“Covid-19 has interrupted essential mental health services around the world just when they’re needed most.”

Prior to the pandemic, WHO found that countries were spending less than 2% of their national health budgets on mental health, and struggling to meet their populations’ needs.

‘Repercussions are going to be significant’ 

Speaking at the Green Party’s online party convention this weekend, party spokesperson for health Neasa Hourigan criticised the HSE’s winter plan for not allocating enough funding towards mental health.

Hourigan said that Covid-19 has put people under “immense pressure” and called for the budget to show a “renewed commitment to mental health and mental health funding”.

Likewise, the Mental Health Reform, the national coalition on mental health, expressed serious concern about the absence of mental health in the Winter Plan for 2020.

“Community mental health services and supports are critically under-resourced yet they are imperative in preventing people being admitted to hospital for mental health treatment. These have not been funded in the Winter Plan,” CEO of Mental Health Reform, Fiona Coyle, said at the time.

“Over the tough winter months ahead, when access to mental health service can become even more difficult for people, we believe the lack of additional resources for services in this Winter Plan will have a negative impact both on individuals and acute services.”

Mental health charity Aware says it has experienced a dramatic increase in demand for its services over the past seven months, and echoed the calls for greater investment. 

“We are already seeing the consequences of Covid-19 on the nation’s mental health. Over the past seven months, we have seen an increase of over 60% in calls to our Support Line, highlighting the impact of the pandemic and related socioeconomic factors on public wellbeing,” Dominic Layden, Chief Executive at Aware said. 

“Unless we start to prioritise mental health and invest accordingly, the repercussions are going to be significant – both for our society and our economy.”

  • Our colleagues at Noteworthy want to investigate the measures being taken to tackle a pandemic-induced mental health crisis. You can help fund them here.

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    Mute David Lee
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:09 PM

    Someone forward this link onto Holohans email and Cc it to the rest of NPHET

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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:18 PM

    @David Lee: why? The call here is for funding. I don’t see anything in the article that criticises NPHET or lockdowns or affirmative action to help control the virus spread. How do you think that not having a lock down, flooding our hospital with cases, overrunning our testing facilities, clogging up our GP services is going to help mental health treatment in this country?

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    Mute David Lee
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:32 PM

    @GrumpyAulFella: And how do we fund mental health with the economy in constant lockdown? Do you have a money tree?

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    Mute Fr. Fintan Stack
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:35 PM

    @David Lee: Do you have that same opinion about cancer treatment or any other type of “physical” ailment?

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    Mute David Lee
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:38 PM

    @Fr. Fintan Stack: Yes I absolutely do & I’ve lost people due to lack of cancer diagnosis from initial lockdown who would have probably survived, but this article is solely about mental health.

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    Mute Ciaran Burke
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:40 PM

    @David Lee: You borrow that’s how, they borrow for teachers, nurses and gardai they can borrow for mental health who’s budget is already measly. I work in mental health private sector so public funding doesnt influence me. I am taking calls and the stories I hear when I’m in work of increased self harm ideation, anxiety through the roof substance abuse on the rise. The government needs to get real and seriously tackle mental health.

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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:48 PM

    @David Lee: the tax take is holding up, apart from VAT. We’re €9bn overspend at the moment and we’ll borrow more, just like every other country, if we have to. For starters I for one would freeze all public sector pay increases and divert this money to health. This is no time for pay increases when private sector workers are losing jobs and being put on short time. This would see substantial savings that could be diverted to mental health. Look to freeze other high spending non-essential projects e.g. public transport and divert the money to health and so on.

    19
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    Mute Isabel Oliveira
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:55 PM

    @Ciaran Burke: borrow more and pay for it with 10 years of austerity with cuts to public services ?

    21
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    Mute David Corrigan
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:17 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: Yep. We are good at that. There is never a peep out of our people when that solution is implemented.

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    Mute Seymour Cup
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:23 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: Austerity is a political decision driven by a flawed economic theory, not a necessity.

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    Mute Tommy Roche
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:25 PM

    @David Lee: Yea, send this to Holohan and tell him not to bother with the article, just to read the headline and then the comments. He’ll see for himself the mental health impacts this pandemic is having. A growing percentage of our population doesn’t want to follow the science anymore, just their own ‘solutions’ dragged from some dark area within their minds. From “It’s a giant conspiracy and Covid19 doesn’t exist” to “OMG, we’re all going to die. Lock us in our homes now”. It’s one of the reasons I don’t want schools shut down again. Sitting at home all day listening to irrational nonsense from parents will have far greater long term mental health impacts on children than Covid ever will.

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    Mute Kavsie
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:40 PM

    @GrumpyAulFella: “How do you think that not having a lock down, flooding our hospital with cases, overrunning our testing facilities, clogging up our GP services services is going to help mental health treatment in this country?”

    we are currently not in lockdown, our hospitals are NOT flooded with cases, our tesing facilities are not achieveing their 100,000 target
    our GP services are quite far from clogged….
    so, you are saying we should have a lockdown just IN CASE of all of the above?

    just one big IF??

    4
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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:51 PM

    @Kavsie: we’re testing at and above 88,000 per day at present. Our hospital admission rates are increasing and all of this while still keeping pubs closed and many people working from home and with L3 measures in Dublin. What do you think would happen if there were no measures in place, all pubs and restaurants were open, everyone back on public transport, attendance at sporting events etc? Use your loaf lad and look up exponential growth.

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    Mute Tommy Roche
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:56 PM

    @Kavsie: Forget for a moment the people commenting here. Can you explain why you think you are right, and highly trained epidemiologists who tell us we need to act now to prevent Covid from spiralling out of control, are wrong ? Actually a serious question. All NPHET do is offer health recommendations based on best available data. It’s up to Government to decide whether or not to accept those recommendations, either in whole or in part. Is it NPHETs expert opinions you don’t trust or the Government’s ability to weigh up the pros and cons of acting on those opinions ?

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    Mute Sean Oige
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:12 PM

    It’s not just mental health. Its everything else that has been put on the long finger like cancer services….

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    Mute Felicity Hensen
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:17 PM

    @Sean Oige: I booked my smear test this morning. My friend’s mother is receiving treatment for cancer. Would you care to provide a credible source to support your assertion that cancer services have “been put on the long finger”.

    36
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    Mute Anna Anna
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:50 PM

    @Felicity Hensen: people had smears and breast checks cancelled and rescheduled when the first lockdown was implemented in March. A 6 month delay could make a big difference to some people.

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    Mute emilyclaire_olivia
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:51 PM

    @Felicity Hensen: well my smear was due in June and I only received my letter last Friday. When I rang up to enquire about it in August they told me it was delayed because of the covid restrictions and they were working through the back log in phases so I guess I should be lucky I have mine already.

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    Mute Anna Anna
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:52 PM

    @Felicity Hensen: follow up screening for prostate and thyroid cancer was cancelled also back in March as they were considered low risk. Services resumed in June, but again 3 month delays were experienced

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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:40 PM

    @Anna Anna: and will this improve without a lockdown as our GP services, clinics and hospitals start filling up with Covid and suspected Covid cases? You seem to be suggesting that our hospital services will improve with a deadly virus on the loose laying waste to our elderly and health compromised population.

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    Mute Anne Marie Devlin
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:42 PM

    @Felicity Hensen: it depends on what type of cancer treatment. Chemotherapy has been available all along. Other types of treatment were stopped. That includes ablations which is basically microwaving a lesion. It has started again, but for many people who were due to receive it, it’s too late. The lesion is either too big or they have died. Also ICU consultant on the radio this morning saying that large numbers of people aren’t attending for colonoscopies because they’re too afraid of catching covid.

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    Mute Marie Louise Ryan
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:19 PM

    They do not care about the repercussions due to all the pandemic restrictions.
    The mental health, business & financial implications are huge.

    Pawns in this game of chess we all are

    108
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    Mute Honeybee
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:29 PM

    It is only in the years to come that the real impact of these decisions will be realised and it will not be confined to just mental health issues although these will be significant but to all aspects of health, well being and our physical, social, economic etc environment. We were told the plan was to develop a living alongside the virus plan but the response is just to keep locking us down and long-term that is not a workable solution, it now seems the same people occupy our dreams and nightmares but worse still is that the nightmare continues even after we wake.

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    Mute Anna Anna
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:47 PM

    True. But whenever that time comes NPHET members will not be held accountable as they will say it was just ‘advice’. It is the government who will decide to take that advice or not. Professor McConkey was on Primetime last week saying if we had a 3 month national lockdown we could eliminate the virus. It seems that the Zero Covid Professors are influencing NPHET behind the scenes. This level 5 lockdown (oreven level 4 which seems more likely) will not just be for 4 weeks. The cases will continue to rise in the Winter as the virus spreads easier in colder environments. As Prof Carl Heneghan said the virus can never be eliminated as it can survive in an animal host. The Zero Covid Professors had no response to this when he spoke at the Seanad Covid Committee. Lockdowns only delay the spread.

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    Mute Isabel Oliveira
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:01 PM

    @Anna Anna: and he was on RTE radio again this morning. Saying we should be like Asia . Like Australian and New Zealand where the infected are removed by the police or military to detention “ quarantine centres” & plan to live isolated from the world. The zero Covid fantasists are indeed influencing the government and public health policy and RTE are facilitating them.

    I’m not watching or listening to more RTE and their countless documentaries on Covid 19 and their biased interviews & zero Covid recurrent guests designed to spread panic for compliance.

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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:06 PM

    @Anna Anna: that’s exactly what we want to do, delay the spread, control admissions, save lives. Have NPHET ever stated that their objective was to eliminate the virus? What effect would giving this virus free rein have on our hospital services? Would cancer screening improve with hospitals flooded with increasing Covid cases? Would people’s mental health be better going out and about not knowing if the person beside them is carrying Covid and that there is an uncontrolled virus on the loose? What about our elderly and vulnerable population? How would their mental and physical health fair with an uncontrolled deadly, to them, virus on the loose? Protective immunity would require that 70%-80% of the population are immune and we have a vaccine.

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    Mute ihcalaM
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:20 PM

    @Anna Anna: It’s true that there are zero covid advocates on NPHET but senior members not in favour of the zero covid proposals as they don’t believe they are workable and are on record saying so.

    For example, Ronan Glynn:

    https://www.irishpost.com/news/not-possible-to-eliminate-covid-19-from-ireland-we-have-to-learn-to-live-with-the-threat-dr-ronan-glynn-191499

    Going to level 5 doesn’t mean they want zero covid. It means they want to aggressively tackle the spread for a time, before restrictions are relaxed again once the numbers stabilise. It’s all in the Govt. roadmap… which mentions nothing about a zero covid strategy.

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    Mute ihcalaM
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:28 PM

    @Anna Anna: Also, I’ve read Prof. Heneghan’s testimony to the Special Committee, and you’re misrepresenting it (as well as the responses to him).

    He did not say elimination wasn’t possible due to the animal host issue, but he flagged it as a problem. Some species can contract Covid-19 but don’t seem to be able to transmit the virus to humans, there has been research on this. It’s speculative to say the least, which is strange coming from a professor proclaiming himself to be so evidence-based in his thinking.

    To say the other members had no response is also false. Prof Susan Michie pointed out after he spoke that he was really talking about the possibility of eradication rather than elimination strategies, which he seems to have mixed up in his head.

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    Mute Anna Anna
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    Oct 5th 2020, 2:24 PM

    @Anna Anna: everyone should read the information directly themselves before they decide to agree with any journal commenter (and I include myself in that). There had been a couple of videos posted on YouTube with short clips from the Seanad Covid Committee with Prof Heneghan. I’ve included one below
    https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/special_committee_on_covid_19_response/2020-08-13/4/

    https://youtu.be/YtjY2N0I__0

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    Mute Isabel Oliveira
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    Oct 5th 2020, 7:02 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: how democratic …

    “Faced with a new cluster this week after 102 days without a locally transmitted case, New Zealand has quickly enacted this strategy, placing around 30 people — including at least two children below the age of 10 — into centralized quarantine.”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-13/forced-isolation-may-be-the-only-way-to-stop-resurgence-of-virus

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    Mute Isabel Oliveira
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:54 PM

    It’s not funding that is required it’s the suspension of excessive pandemic measures & restrictions that is required. That is what is causing increased mental health issues. No amount of funding will help until the cause is eradicated.

    To top it up not even statistical services are working to measure the impact of lockdown in Ireland.

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    Mute Johnny Sins
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:07 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: please, just shut up Isabel you looney toon.

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    Mute Damo
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:23 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: take a coffee Isabel

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    Mute Thisguy
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:49 PM

    @Johnny Sins: I remember you, you were my wife’s personal trainer before covid.. What do you do for a living now?

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    Mute Garry Coll
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:47 PM

    No s##t, Sherlock.

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    Mute Nigel o'Neill
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:44 PM

    Takes only basic logic to understand or even predict that.

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    Mute Lynn
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    Oct 5th 2020, 2:32 PM

    Services are providing counselling over the phone or online and many provided this for free during the first lockdown. Also low cost counseling is available for people.

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