This article is from page 18 of the 2013-01-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
FORMER Clare psychiatric nurse and chairman of the HSE West Forum Committee Tom McNamara has raised concerns that the psychiatric nurse specialising in assessing patients out of hours is often redeployed due to staffing issues in other areas of the mid west region’s hospitals.
The liaison mental health nurse is appointed in the area’s three hospitals, including Ennis, to assess people presenting with mental health issues between 4pm and 3am and at weekends.
Cllr McNamara said that these ex- perienced nurses are also familiar with the case of many patients of the mental health service who may call out of hours, and this experience plays a vital role.
“The crisis nurse [liaison nurse] would know some patents straight away and would be able to access them there and then. If the nurse is not available an ambulance may have to be sent out unnecessarily to bring the patient in,” he said.
“The system works well when the nurse is there. He or she then puts the information into the system, and the day hospital the patient attends knows the following morning that there had been an issue the night before,” he said.
“At a time when suicide is so prevalent it is disappointing that the HSE is taking out crisis nurses to fill in vacancies within the system.”
The former nurse said that while he was disappointed that the “crisis nurse” was often moved on to the hospital floor leaving the position vacant, he encouraged anyone concerned about their mental health to ring the hospitals or Shannondoc if it is out of hours, as there is still help available through the psychiatric services.
“I would encourage people to call and that there is help out there and there is a way out of it [feeling of depression],” he added.