STAFF AT the Central Mental Hospital say it will cease accepting admissions within a matter of days unless it is allowed to fill staff vacancies.
Siptu, which represents the majority of staff at the institution, says the hospital currently has 25 vacant nursing posts and will not be able to cope with any admissions from next week.
The hospital had previously sought an exemption from the moratorium on recruitment from the Health Service Executive (HSE) to employ the additional staff required but was unsuccessful. Yesterday the HSE said it was in the process of seeking a derogation from the embargo. This involves seeking approval from the Department of Finance, a HSE spokeswoman said yesterday, which is expected to occur over the coming days.
In the meantime Siptu’s national nursing official Louise O’Reilly said the hospital was operating under severe strain.
“Staff are working overtime to try to cope, but management have told us they will close admissions as a result of staff shortages,” she said. “We’re hopeful the moratorium on recruitment will be lifted at the hospital. If there was ever a special case this is it. There is nowhere else for people to go; it is the only forensic facility of its type in the country,” Ms O’Reilly said.
About 100 patients a year pass through the Central Mental Hospital, the State’s most secure therapeutic facility for psychiatric patients.
It provides care in conditions of high, medium and low security for those transferred from prison, those found not guilty by reason of insanity and those transferred from local psychiatric hospitals in need of treatment in special conditions of security. Siptu says the moratorium on recruitment means that the hospital will not now be able to fulfil its obligations under the Mental Health Act or the Criminal Law Insanity Act. This, it says, could leave the HSE open to legal challenges.
“There are already legal precedents to suggest that the Central Mental Hospital will have no option but to accept patients found not guilty by reason of insanity in criminal cases,” Ms O’Reilly said.
“This begs the question of how they and other patients are to be treated and cared for if there are inadequate staffing levels.”
The closure of admissions would also put pressure on the rest of the State’s psychiatric services and on the prison system.