15 March 2007
Dr. Henry: I thank Ms Kelly for her moving account of her daughter's difficulties. I hope she has improved.
Ms Kelly: She is doing well at the moment. She is 75% to 80% well and is coping with life.
Dr. Henry: A worrying issue raised by Ms Kelly is the lack of access to services at weekends and other out-of-hours times. We have heard this before in regard to patients with mental health problems. There are sometimes disastrous consequences when people cannot access services. We must take this issue up seriously with the Department.
It is worrying to hear Ms Kelly speak of the dissociation between herself and the hospital services her daughter required. It was she who was expected to look after her daughter at the weekend. It is unsatisfactory that parents in such situations are given little instruction and that no inquiry is made on a Monday morning as to how their child has fared. This is another example of where services must urgently be improved.
I also was concerned because many of these young people, it is generally girls, seem to run into trouble in their teens at school, frequently during the transition from primary to secondary school. While the association with streaming is new to me, its examination might be significant. It destroys people's confidence to feel they are not perceived to be as valuable as they had always thought. I do not know how many secondary schools operate total streaming for children at present. I had the experience whereby one child went to a school in which streaming only took place for three subjects, while the others went to a school in which all subjects were streamed. I thought the school in which only three subjects were streamed, which included higher mathematics, Irish and so on, was much better than the one in which the sheep and goats were divided strictly. Members should ask questions of the education system and can contact the Department of Education and Science in this regard.
The waiting list for St. Vincent's Hospital sounds terrible. A period of 18 months is impossible.
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