New Limerick facility to offer mental health care

A NEW mental health hub for children and adolescents is currently under development in Limerick city centre.

The new Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) centre and Hub Day Hospital is to be located on the St Joseph’s Hospital Campus site, on Mulgrave Street.

Described as a “major capital plan”, the new hub will be a national clinical programme, for which the Mid-West is a pilot site.

With this new initiative, CAMHS aims to provide an alternative to inpatient care.

The Limerick hub will provide children and young people with acute treatment at home or in the Hub Day Hospital.

According to the HSE, it is “anticipated that the service will commence in the coming weeks” while the site is being “progressed.”

“Capital funding is approved. A design team is finalising its work and is gone for planning with a completion date of 2026.”

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The update was shared during the Regional Health Forum West Meeting, after Cllr Mary Howard enquired about the steps CAMHS had been taking to provide a safe service to young people in the region.

Maria Bridgeman, Chief Officer, HSE Mid-West Community Healthcare said: “HSE Mid-West Community Healthcare (MWCH) has engaged with the Mental Health Commission (MHC) throughout its examination of CAMHS, including during their inspection in the MidWest in June 2022.

"Throughout this process, and before it commenced, HSE MWCH initiated a series of service improvements within to enhance the CAMHS service and improve the experience of children, young people and families in the Mid-West.

“HSE Mid-West Community Healthcare acknowledges that there have been deficits in the provision of CAMHS and I wish to apologise to children and families who have not received the standard of care that they or we expect.

"The delivery of a high-quality CAMHS service to the children and young people of Clare, Limerick and North Tipperary is a priority for HSE Mid-West Community Healthcare. We have made, and are making, significant investments in the service.”

She also noted that at the time of the MHC review, all CAMHS consultants in the Mid-West worked part-time and that since then, additional consultants have been recruited.