asked the Minister for Health what percentage of the reduction of 3,250 in-patients in psychiatric hospitals were persons under (a) 60 and (b) 65 years of age.
Ceisteanna-Questions. Oral Answers. - Psychiatric Patients.
10.
The information is not available but certain data are being collected and when these are available and processed it should be possible to give the Deputy substantially the information he has asked for. I shall communicate with him at a later date.
11.
asked the Minister for Health whether he has satisfied himself as to the reasons for the continued failure in certain mental hospitals to reduce the in-patient cases of emotionally disturbed persons as has been achieved in those hospitals with the highest discharge rate recorded.
The hospitalisation rate in any area is influenced by a variety of factors. Such factors are the attitude of the hospital staff, the availability of beds, the attitude of the public, the marriage rate and the rates of emigration and unemployment, the demographic structure, social and geographic isolations and, possibly, differences in the prevalence rates. It would be impossible without careful research to say whether the hospitalisation rate in any area should be lower. The Medico-Social Research Board has undertaken a psychiatric morbidity study in three rural areas—Carlow and South Kildare, Roscommon and Westmeath, one of low, one of high and one of medium hospitalised morbidity. This study should provide valuable data to help in the research for the reasons which have led to our present high hospitalisation rates in the psychiatric field.