Madam, - I refer to Mr K McPartlan's and Mr Seán Love's letters (Nov 10th) in response to mine regarding delays in implementing the Mental Health Act/Part II.
I would like to reassure both writers that consultant psychiatrists are as well, if not better placed than most to have full knowledge of the needs and rights of patients and in particular those patients who require involuntary detention. Consultants have an ethical and moral obligation to advocate on behalf of their patients and they have campaigned for two decades for new legislation to improve the rights of involuntary detained patients.
Any assertion that they do not have any equal if not better mandate than the Irish Advocacy Network, Amnesty International et al to speak on behalf of patients is inaccurate.
Should the Minister decide to implement the legislation in the morning, the public can be assured that consultant psychiatrists will abide by their legal and moral obligations and the law of the land in managing their patients.
However, when highlighting the deficiencies in the service which may result in those legal entitlements being breached, consultants are accused of procrastinating and prevaricating.
Under the proposed legislation, involuntary detained patients will be entitled to certain rights within the first 24 hours of their detention. I have no doubt that, in the event of these entitlements not being observed, Amnesty International and other NGOs would (quite rightly) be up in arms because of these breaches of a patient's rights. The sole aim of the IHCA is to ensure insofar as is possible that such breaches will not take place.
The only reason for the impasse in the current round of negotiations is because the Mental Health Commission and HSE have refused to meet the IHCA. We have had a great many lectures about the importance of hand-washing in the health services in recent weeks. It would seem that the MHC and HSE have washed their hands of their responsibility to patients in what is commonly described as "the Cinderella" of the health services. - Yours, etc,
FINBARR FITZPATRICK, Secretary General, Irish Hospital Consultants' Association, Dundrum Office Park, Dublin 14.