Findings of suicide report to be used in guidelines

The Government has referred a report into the circumstances surrounding the death of a 21-year-old Limerick student by suicide to the Mental Health Commission.

The expert group report into the death of Ms Anne O'Rahilly criticised communications and systems failures on behalf of consultant psychiatrists, nurses and mental health services in general in Limerick.

Ms O'Rahilly killed herself at the psychiatric unit at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick in September 2002. The night before she had been discharged from the private St Patrick's Hospital in Dublin as she did not have adequate health insurance to remain there.

The expert group's recommendations are to be incorporated into a new quality framework for standards of mental health care, clinical governance and codes of practice, which is being drawn up by the commission.

It is understood that the O'Rahilly family has initiated legal proceedings against the Mid Western Health Board and has sent a copy of the report to the Medical Council, the governing body for doctors in Ireland, which could investigate the behaviour of the psychiatrists concerned.

Meanwhile, the president of the Irish Association of Suicidology, Fine Gael deputy Mr Dan Neville, claimed last night that up to 50,000 people in Ireland are attempting suicide every year. He called on the Government to totally re-examine its investment in psychiatric services.

Deputy Neville said that while he was shocked at some of the findings of the O'Rahilly report, published in The Irish Times on Saturday, he was aware of other cases around the country where people had been let down by the system. He said that he had gone to funerals of people who, their families maintained, had come out of psychiatric hospitals with suicidal feelings.

He said that the O'Rahilly family "had done an enormous service" by pushing for an inquiry into the treatment their daughter had received.

Mr Neville said that because of the stigma attached to suicide, other families frequently did not challenge why their loved ones died.

Mr Neville said that Exchequer investment in psychiatric services was falling as a percentage of health spending and he accused the Department of Health of hiding behind the stigma attached to suicide.

He said that when the Fianna Fáil/PD administration came to power in 1997, psychiatric services received 11 per cent of health spending but that this figure had now fallen to 6.67 per cent.

Mr Neville said studies had found that 10,500 people annually presented to hospital accident and emergency departments following suicide attempts. An unknown number of others went to GPs or sought no treatment at all.

He said a conservative estimate would be that 50,000 people attempted suicide every year.

The Department of Health told The Irish Times last night that the Mid Western Health Board and the Limerick Mental Health Services welcomed the report's recommendations as a means to guide improvements within the service.

The Department of Health said that the Minister of State, Mr Tim O'Malley, had referred the report to the Mental Health Commission, which would ensure that the lessons learned from the tragedy would be incorporated into future national guidelines.

The Mid Western Health Board said it had accepted all 36 recommendations and that some had already been implemented. Work on others was continuing. Some would involve substantial capital investment, it said.