Mayo has 'wholly inadequate mental health rehabilitation team' - report 

The short-sightedness of not providing adequate mental health rehabilitation services has led to long-term neglect of people with serious and enduring mental illnesses in Mayo, according to a report by the Mental Health Commission.

The county has one poorly staffed rehabilitation team. The team only covers the Castlebar area, leaving a large area of the county without a rehabilitation service.

Increase in funding is required to make the rehabilitation service more comprehensive and to extend the service to the rest of Co. Mayo.

Authored by the Inspector of Mental Health Services, Dr Susan Finnerty, the report – entitled ‘Rehabilitation and Recovery in Irish Mental Health Services’ - demonstrated a continued lack of development in mental health rehabilitation services in Ireland, which she said was disappointing, and which has led the HSE to provide an ‘out-of-area’ service, a practice that has been strongly criticised internationally.

As part of her report, Dr Finnerty spoke with people who had enduring mental illness and who were frustrated and angry with their lack of progression to more independent living and who were stuck in a system that was not meeting their needs.

“The long-term neglect of people with severe and enduring mental illness has negative outcomes for the service user and their families,” she said.

“Because of the unmet need for rehabilitation, many people with enduring mental illness have repeated admissions to inpatient psychiatric units, are then discharged, to be readmitted when things breakdown again – the so-called ‘revolving door’ of admissions.

“In the long-term, this is counterproductive for both the service user and the already severely under-resourced acute services.

The short-sightedness of not providing adequate mental health rehabilitation services, from both a human rights and a financial viewpoint, is quite astounding.”

The Mental Health Commission has written to the HSE seeking an action plan to address the concerns raised in the report.