Funding trickle inadequate for Covid’s mental health tsunami

If people were losing limbs at the rate they’re losing their minds, maybe the Government would adequately fund mental health services.

Then again, maybe not. Even before Covid-19, and when the public finances were flush, overcrowded Emergency Departments, like war zones with patients being treated on trolleys in corridors, was the norm.

And patients on trolleys in unsafe EDs is the new normal, too. This is despite promises that we’d never return to the bad old days of overcrowding, post-pandemic.

Firing money at the health service hasn’t solved the issue. UHG and Portiuncula were overwhelmed these past months, as demand for ED services hit record highs. But money matters.

In 2021, health accounted for over €20 billion of overall Government current expenditure. The problem is, not enough of it was spent on mental health.

That budget represented a yearly increase of €4 billion for health, which was allocated for obvious reasons – we were battling a global pandemic.

Less obvious was why just €50 million of that additional €4 billion went on mental health.

The Psychiatric Nurses Association argued it was actually just €38 million extra, but let’s give the Government the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say it was €50 million extra – it was still insufficient to deal with the tsunami of mental health issues associated with protracted lockdowns.

Covid-19 has impacted on everyone’s mental health. Some people quite enjoyed lockdown but are now feeling the ill-effects of anxiety around reopening. Others found lockdown extremely difficult. Many people lost family members to the virus. Many more lost their jobs. Others lost hope in the seemingly endless, rolling restrictions.

People with existing mental health problems suffered breakdowns. Many who had never before had mental health problems, had breakdowns too.

And the response? Totally inadequate.

The overall health spend announced in Budget 2022 was €21 billion, roughly €500 million more than this year.

An extra €47 million has been allocated to mental health, bringing the total mental health budget for next year to €1.149 billion. It sounds huge, but it’s half of what’s needed.

The World Health Organisation recommends that 12% of health budgets should be spent on mental health. Sláintecare recommends that mental health funding should reach 10% by 2025.

Mental Health Reform, a coalition of organisations, set out a formula to reach 10% over three years. It called for phased budgets, with the proportion of overall health budget being spent on mental health to reach 7.5% in 2022, 8.5% in 2023, and 10% in 2024.

Already, this target is doomed to fail. The total mental health allocation next year is 5.5% of the health budget. It’s not near enough.

Meanwhile, charities like Samaritans and Pieta House shake buckets to raise cash to plug the gaps that vulnerable people will inevitably fall through.

(Photo: Health Minister Stephen Donnelly. Funding for our mental health services remains totally inadequate, leaving charities like Samaritans and Pieta House shaking buckets to raise cash to assist vulnerable people who fall through the cracks).

This is a shortened preview version of Bradley Bytes. To read more, see this week's Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.