This article is from page 1 of the 2008-07-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 1 JPG
has learned that Slainte, the HSE’s local drug and alcohol treatment service, has been forced to limit its service to those under the age of 24.
The recruitment freeze in the HSE has also left more than half the county without a local mental health counsellor as staff covering the En- nis, east Clare and west Clare regions have not been replaced.
This has created a situation where Clare GPs have no place to refer pa- tients who present with alcohol or drug addiction problems, while GPs outside of Ennis, east and west Clare
can only refer addiction patients with mental problems to the mental health services which they claim are “inap- propriate” to their needs.
“There is a big difficulty in Clare when it comes to funding. At the mo- ment, in large areas of the county there is no counselling service avail- able at all. We have a worse service now than we had back in 2006,” said Clare county councillor and commu- nity nurse manager with Clare com- munity mental health services, Joe Arkins (FG).
“We may have the offices and the signs outside the door, but we don’t have the personnel inside. The area is badly under funded. People over 24 years of age are being sent to the mental health services which is a totally inappropriate place to send Weloeee