Pressure needs to be maintained to restore mental health services to Tipperary, says lobby group

The campaign to restore mental health services in Tipperary is at a crucial stage and it is vital to keep the pressure on to have those services restored.

That's the message from the chairperson of the lobby group Tipperary's Fight for Mental Health Services.

Dan Connolly was speaking following meetings between members of the group's committee and TDs and Senators that were held in Dail Eireann earlier this month.

"Every politician needs to be made aware that Tipperary's mental health services are in a bad way", says Mr. Connolly.

However he and other members of the lobby group say they were very encouraged to hear four Tipperary TDs - Seamus Healy, Mattie McGrath, Jackie Cahill and Alan Kelly - declare when they sat in one room during the meetings in Dublin that this would be an issue they would fight together.

The group also met with Kilkenny TD Kathleen Funchion, Cork East TD Pat Buckley and Senator Joan Freeman, the founder of Pieta House, the suicide intervention charity.   

Tipperary's Fight for Mental Health Services organised a major rally and march in Clonmel at the beginning of last month, when more than 1,000 people took to the streets to demand the return of acute psychiatric beds to the county.

https://www.nationalist.ie/news/home/318377/action-needed-now-to-restore-mental-health-services-in-tipperary-says-psychiatrist.html

The group is lobbying for the re-opening of St. Michael's psychiatric hospital unit in Clonmel, which closed in 2012. 

If that doesn't happen, they say acute services could be provided at Our Lady's Hospital in Cashel, while services for younger people could be made available at St. Joseph's in Ferryhouse, Clonmel.

The group is also campaigning for a dedicated room at the ED department of South Tipperary General Hospital, where people with suicidal feelings or those presenting with mental health problems could be treated without delay, and without having to sit in the waiting room. 

"We are aware that the campaign will not be an easy one but we would ask the public to keep backing this campaign", says Dan Connolly.