Health Minister Leo Varadkar
€12million of the €36million mental health budget is being transferred to other areas in the Department of Health, after the money – which was set aside to recruit staff – was not spent…
Health Minister Leo Varadker has said the mental health budget will be fully restored next year.
Further to this, a teenager has written a piece for Fiona Kennedy‘s mental health blog, Sunny Spells And Scattered Showers.
They write:
I am seventeen years old and attend the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). My mother works in the in-patients building, so I’ve heard bits about that. I was referred to this service by Jigsaw, and only had a couple week’s wait for either service.
For this I am extremely grateful, you know the difference time like that can make.
I know more than several young people attending CAMHS, Jigsaw, and other service like myself. Schools of late have been running workshops and events based around mental health and wellbeing. I am so fortunate to have all these services and things to help myself and others my age.
However, in five months time I will be turning 18. I’m in the thick of my treatment, and myself, my parents, and my psychiatrist all seem to have this time of me becoming an adult looming over our heads.
It seems that when we become legal adults, there’s almost nothing for us. I don’t understand how this could be. With so many young people going from child to adult areas, what will become of us with constant cuts?
What of those who will need long term treatment after their adolescent years? How much will we have to fight for?
Let me once again reiterate just how thankful I am for my current situation, and yet there is a constant fear of the unknown over all I am fortunate enough to receive as a “child and adolescent”.
Concern over transfer of €12m from mental health funds (RTE)
Yesterday: ‘HSE Keeps Me From Dying But Does Little To Help Me Live’
Mark Stedman/Rollingnews
Coulda gone to mental health services, only for Leo, Leo, Leo
There is something seriously wrong in the health service here (Sherlock Holmes has nothing on me). We are currently paying the most as a percentage of government spending on health in Europe (as per 2014) yet the service is dire and constantly in need of money. I know its been said before, but there needs to be a government with balls to go in and reform that mess. This new patchwork will not be it.
Also according to the article: Government expenditure on unemployment, as a percentage of overall spending, is also the highest in Europe, while spending on old age is the lowest.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/ireland-tops-eu-table-for-percentage-spent-on-health-1.2618129.
We’ve had non-patchwork governments for the entirety of our history and they’ve made a balls of it.
I actually think minority government could help – if parties were to come together and agree *one* health plan, that’d survive despite governments changing, we might get somewhere. Long-term thinking for once.
It was the one bright idea that came out of Renua. To pool all parties ‘knowledge’ on the health service and fix it with long term goals, not just a term in office of govt, but a plan that would be continued through successive governments.
Super wonderful idea.
Two massive hurdles though…..
1. get them to agree to do it and take the HSE out of the political football arena.
2. TTIP and all that comes with it
It’s such a shame the NHS doesn’t do franchising, solve all our problems. Just bung our health budget at them and let them run it.
The reform though will need to involve quite a few redundancies, a vote loser, and will most definitely lead to large amounts of strikes, also a vote loser. No party would be will to engage in an action that will lose them votes when an election could be called at any time.
That said, its been that short term thinking that has got us to this stage, where we spend barrels of money for a dire health service and everyone is too terrified to do anything other than throw more money at the problem.
This is why Lucinda hit the nail on the head when she suggested it. I was very surprised to even hear it mentioned as I thought our Dáil was nowhere near even contemplating such a thing… Renua’s one saving grace, imo, raising that conversation.
They ruined it when they went on to float the idea of confiscating organs from people convicted for loitering / jaywalking.
And so why were the staff not recruited? Because of the HSE’s time honoured policy of paying their front line staff so little so the big wig administrators, who see nobody, can get comfy chairs. Here’s an example of why so much is being spent on health. Not too long ago I was at the back of a general hospital and saw about 150 mattresses were being loaded into skips. Perfectly good mattresses but as they weren’t the correct brand they were being dumped. In the skip beside it were hundreds of crutches and about a dozen wheelchairs as once they’re issued they cannot be reused for hygiene purposes. God forbid they’d be washed and sterilised for reuse but no.
I wonder what was the reason that they didn’t spend the money? It sounds most unusual – from all I’ve heard of government departments, they try and spend every possible penny, because they’re terrified they’ll lose budget the next year.