asked the Minister for Health whether any extended programme of modernisation of mental hospital buildings and services is under consideration and whether any plan exists to close down buildings which are over 100 years old.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Mental Hospital Modernisation.
10.
The modernisation of mental hospital buildings is a continuing process and the improvements needed may vary from minor schemes to complete replacement. Since becoming Minister for Health I have, each year, devoted an appreciable proportion of the capital building programme towards the modernisation and improvement of our mental hospitals.
In connection with the current debate on the Estmiates for my Department I have circulated, for the information of all Deputies, a statement showing all hospital building projects, including those at mental hospitals, which have been recently completed or which are at the building tender, or planning stage. No less than 44 mental hospital projects are mentioned in this statement and these included nine projects completed since May, 1971, 20 projects currently under construction, four projects at tender stage and 11 projects at an advanced stage of planning.
In the course of my speech on the Estimates I announced that, as a further step towards bringing psychiatry more effectively into the community, I had recently directed that in the capital building programme greater emphasis should be placed on the provision of short stay psychiatric units in general hospitals, staffed by specially qualified nurses, which was one of the principal recommendations of the Commission on Mental Illness. Six such units had already been provided and no less than 15 further units will now be provided. Two of these are mentioned in the statement circulated to Deputies while provision for 13 further units has been made but siting and other details have to be investigated before positive decisions can be taken in the case of some of these projects.
Since 1958 when the patient population totalled 20,046 there has been a successive reduction in the patient population of our psychiatric hospitals until at the end of 1971 the total was 14,922. I am confident that the provision of short-stay units will ensure the continuance of this downward trend. This should enable some of the older buildings which it would be uneconomic to modernise to be demolished. In the meantime, I will continue, in so far as capital resources can be allocated for the purpose, my policy of up-grading buildings which are suitable for retention.
Modern buildings will, no doubt, help to improve services but I feel I should record my view that, despite the necessarily slow process of modernisation, which is largely determined by availability of capital resources, great strides have been made in the modernisation of our services for the psychiatrically ill.
Could the Minister tell me what proportion of the 14,000 patients at present in mental hospitals are in buildings which are over 100 years old?
It would be very hard to say because there have been units added to old buildings; some of the old buildings have been thoroughly modernised and brought up to date and others have been improved but still left very antique. It would be impossible to give an analysis of that.
Would the Minister agree that quite a large proportion of these mental patients are housed in buildings which are over 100 years old?
Quite a considerable number are housed in buildings which are over 100 years old.
Can the Minister promise any improvement in this situation in the near future?
I think the priority in this matter is to do what we can with these old buildings but to develop the short stay units. That really is the priority in so far as hospitalisation is concerned in regard to institutional treatment: the provision of 15 more short stay units. This will be best for the growing generation of younger people who need psychiatric help and who are most likely to be assisted by going to a short stay unit and further by industrial therapy. I would prefer to spend a good deal of money on industrial therapy units in the 100-year-old hospitals than to rebuild the hospitals.