Patrick outside Gandon House
The new anti-homeless bars erected outside of the Department of Social Protection’s offices in Gandon House, Amien Street, Dublin ensure those who used to sleep there can no longer do so.
Gráinne O’Sullivan writes:
This is my brother Patrick settling down to sleep on Saturday] outside Gandon House. He is a rough sleeper, he is not addicted to drugs or alcohol but has mental health issues. He was evicted from the HSE last March after 22 years as a long-stay patient with severe and enduring mental illness.
As they were planning to evict him, his 22-year long diagnosis of schizophrenia was changed to personality disorder. If this is the case then was he was held unlawfully for all those years, against his will?
When he was evicted, he was given a piece of paper to contact emergency accommodation but he wasn’t even registered as homeless and could not access a bed. He lived with my family but it didn’t last due to his complex mental health needs. He is barred from many emergency hostels and, as a result, is sleeping on the streets.
Since his eviction he is a different person, he is in utter distress. He is institutionalised and extremely vulnerable and has attempted suicide. There has been a massive deterioration in him as he stopped taking his medication and is extremely paranoid and aggressive. His mental health has never been as bad.
He has a mild intellectual disability and has limited basic life skills. He went from 24/7 nursing care to the streets. A DCC social worker assessment carried out since his eviction reported he is unsuitable for supported community accommodation let alone independent living.
As a family we are heartbroken and sick with worry. He’s at massive risk and our fear is he will end up dead soon. We worry constantly about him and his whereabouts.
We have tried everything we can think of to help him and are getting nowhere. I made a complaint to the HSE and their response was that he is receiving the highest level of care in the community – so the picture above is the highest level of mental healthcare in the community, according to them.
We have tried many times, and recently again, to get him admitted to have his mental health stabilised and back on medication. His GP said he was psychotic and wanted to admit him but his psychiatrist changed the GP’s mind when he rushed down with my brother’s file and said my brother was having withdrawals from alcohol.
He was then turned away from Beaumont A&E and refused admission as when they contacted his psychiatrist, he told them he has no mental illness, but the psychiatrist in Beaumont would not see him without three security guards present. He had a drug and alcohol test done in Beaumont which came back negative.
The Government closed the large institutions and did not open anything in the community to cater for the needs of people like my brother.
How many others are in a similar situation – where they say they have no mental illness in order to discharge them and put them onto the streets?
Many people and agencies in the community have told me there are many identical cases to that of my brother. An investigation needs to be carried out.
He is suffering everyday and is unable to cope due to this neglect. If anything happens to him, the HSE will be responsible. He has a right to treatment for his mental health and shouldn’t be punished for it.
Please share and raise awareness.
Previously: Turned Away
Thanks Anne
A major flaw in the system is to access long term emergency accommodation they have to get themselves on to the waiting list with the council for a house and an appointment can take forever. Councils in Ireland have a massive shortage of beds in each town. It would be cost effective to take over a few places like Bolt Hostel on Bolton St and do a fast track assessment of what needs that people have. There would be no shortage of people willing to help (Id volunteer).
In regards to the number of security guards present, that is standard procedure based on a risk assessment.
Wishing him the best
Christ t’night
There are times when you just have to ask
“What have we become”
That Kat’ leen Lynch better stay well clear of me
Gráinne, I just don’t have the words but please imagine a daycent hug.
We have become America. Ireland has become America. Where else do they treat the sick or mentally unwell so poorly?
Terrible case, the poor guy. No safety net at all
“He lived with my family but it didn’t last due to his complex mental health needs. ”
This is really glossed over. I’m not qualified to judge or anything – but what does this mean?
Genuinely want to get my head around it.
Sounds like this is more of a mental health services issue than a homeless one.
Doubt he’d do well if given a house and the text says he is barred from all of the hostels.
I’m guessing it means no-one has any idea what he’s going to do next, if he will harm himself or them and it causes huge tension at home.
Some people really do need 24 hour care and its beyond the capabilities of most families to deal with this for any prolonged length of time.
She named herself and her brother and provided a photo. It’s probably not all that surprising that she “glossed over” some private family matters. Maybe she has kids and he’s a danger to them either violently or as an influence? Like you said, you don’t know.
Its also none of our business
Anything funded by tax is our business
Really
So I can see your hospital files
See your child’s Stens
Check your TV licence is paid
It wasn’t really directed at the OP, more as a general question as to how this arises since this isn’t the first time I’ve seen it. Asking out of ignorance, no experience with mental healh problems!
Are you sure… you’re displaying some issues with recognising the issues others have to deal with. Could be aspergers.
It’s hard to know what to say. I feel so powerless and frustrated. I can only imagine the frustration for those trying to do something about this. No first world nation should have people sleeping rough. How can we justify this with all the obscene with held by that pesky 1%. What is sobering is, there but for the grace of God go I. The wrong sequence of events and next thing you know, no job, nowhere to live and on the streets. Doesn’t take that much.
No need to feel powerless, if you really care that much why not volunteer with some of the homeless charities.
Gráinne, my heart bleeds for you and I feel wholly useless. To echo other commentators – what have we become?
This is Ireland, you expect what exactly? this country is ruined…game over, full stop…old, sick…no cash? f’cked
Terrible mess…I feel very sorry for you and your brother.
Any comment from broadsheet on the Irish Times article which notes the Gandon House bars were actually installed by the landlord and not the OPW or DSP?
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/amiens-street-anti-homeless-devices-criticised-1.2511203
Of course not…..only if you can kick the State are Broadsheet interested.
”You are neglecting your duty as long as you allow your City Hall to be in the power of men who as landlords derive their living from the rents they extort out of the poisonous slums in which they are slowly murdering the children of the working class – those very children you professed to admire on Sunday.”
Whine whine whine my family and I won’t care for our brother so why don’t the taxpayers do it?
Injury yourself off your high horse yet
What a truly repellent thing to say. Do you actually believe mental illness should be treated by a patient’s family? What about other illnesses? “whine whine whine” What about diabetics?
If you really believe what you posted, then you are beneath contempt. If you don’t, and you are just trying to provoke a reaction (on a post by a person who is desperate for help for a loved one) then I honestly don’t know what kind of person you are. Either way, maybe you could consider looking at yourself and wondering how you got this way.
We are citizens, not taxpayers. We live in a society, not an economy.
And some of us are still human.
Here here
So you don’t want to look after him but think that the government should spend hundreds of thousands of Euros to do it? What does the HSE owe you? They looked after him for free for 22 years, now it’s your turn.
”Ireland without her people is nothing to me, and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for ‘Ireland’, and can yet pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and the suffering, the shame and the degradation wrought upon the people of Ireland, aye, wrought by Irishmen upon Irishmen and women, without burning to end it, is, in my opinion, a fraud and a liar in his heart, no matter how he loves that combination of chemical elements which he is pleased to call ‘Ireland’.
If you are proud of the children who responded to the call of their country, and passed unheeded the seductions of the tyrant, then bestir yourselves to win for them a right to live in that country, a right to enjoy its beauties, and revel in its abundance, irrespective of the wishes of any employer or landlord.” – An Spalpín
The 6th paragraph is self-explanatory:
‘He has a mild intellectual disability and has limited basic life skills. He went from 24/7 nursing care to the streets. A DCC social worker assessment carried out since his eviction reported he is unsuitable for supported community accommodation let alone independent living.’
A country by the greedy, for the greedy.
This country is a h@le of a place, always was, always will be.
Full of bitter, mean, pinch faced, corrupt knackers who’d knife each other for the just for the gainsay.
Greasy till indeed.
Just seeing this.. I don’t know Grainne or anything, but thanks for posting this on it’s own.
Unbelievable that someone like this man is turfed out onto the streets.
I don’t know what type of society we’re becoming here at all that we are seeing the most vulnerable out on the streets trying to fend for themselves. Some don’t seem to have any social conscience at all. It’s worrisome with the likes of Enda Kenny admiring the way things are done in the U.S.
Turfed out on the streets by the government and then by his own family, they should be ashamed.
Surely this poor fella is now not only at risk of harming himself but also possibly others? So everyone just sits around and waits for something to happen? They threw an institutalised mentally ill man out on the street. It’s only a matter of time.
Disgraceful.
If anything happens to him, the HSE will be responsible.
Yeah, but will they take responsibility? Will they F**k.
In the comment section of the other article, Turned Away, about the young man who committed suicide, someone posted the following comment:
”The O Broins’s are holding a silent vigil outside the Dail on thursday 11th february at 7pm. Already 300 people have saidd they are going but more people are needed to attend to show this is a priority.”
Anyone at a loose end or near the area could show a bit of solidarity with these people by attending.
housing first intake – 086 813 9015