Workplace Education Coordinator at DDLETB Balbriggan & Swords Adult Education Services
No surprises whatsoever with these figures for adult eating disorder patients. The shocking truth of the matter is that the eating disorder support services for both adults and children in Ireland for many years have been simply dysfunctional. Covid-19 has been used as a smoke screen to hide the fact that CAMHS up and down the country do not have properly trained multidisciplinary teams in fact many of these teams have been operating at anything between 40-60% capacity for the last fifteen years or more. Pediatric hospitals are wholly unsuitable environments for the treatment of children diagnosed with an eating disorder yet this is the only place available to many children requiring urgent care and treatment from a multidisciplinary specialist eating disorder team which right now in Ireland are not available in any pediatric setting in the country it is as simply as that. No amount of soundbites and optics from government can hide that fact that a blind eye has been turned by successive governments resulting in Pediatric hospitals being able to operate with impunity as a result of their being no independent oversight of the care and treatment plans for children diagnosed with an eating disorder in their care.