To Heal the Broken Heart and Set the Captives Free

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Saturday August 11, 2007 15:42 by Sean Crudden - impero sean at impero dot iol dot ie Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth. 087 9739945

The Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum

Brendan O'Donnell died in the central mental hospital a young man (~ 23) about 10 years ago. Whatever happened him the event set alarm bells ringing in my mind. Is it too late now (or too soon?) to seek a transparent public account of his death and how it came about? He was a triple murderer, physically strong and, as far as I know, suicide was not a factor.

Sean Crudden

Those of us who attended boarding school in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s know what it is like to be withdrawn and separated from the community that formed us and that we grew up in. That gives rise to a feeling of living in a no-man’s-land which stays under the skin right into adult life - even into old age.

Reading the article "Corridors of the mind" by Carl O’Brien in today’s Irish Times the impression that comes across to me is that the Central Mental Hospital is in some ways like a bad boarding school from the 1950’s. Seclusion, monitoring of letters, supervision of phone conversations, early bedtime, a regimented timetable for the day, boredom.

Of course the 1970’s saw the introduction of community schools and the gradual decline of boarding schools. It is a moot point how far the community dimension in education has been realized in succeeding decades. A certain element of choice in the selection of post primary school has remained for children and their parents and this, with the availability of cheap buses, may have militated against a truly community spirit in the second level sector.

Whether the idea of community in education is real or bogus it has been adopted unreservedly as a philosophy in mental health provision. Everyone seems to want mental hospitals closed down and mental health care put in the hands of community mental health teams. Sometimes, it appears to me, that these proposals are merely cosmetic rhetoric attempting to put an acceptable face on modern psychiatry the business end of which is the syringe and the needle even though we hear a lot of (empty) talk about cognitive psychology, psychotherapy, counseling.

To my mind the needles are as sharp in Ardee as they are in Dundrum. So is there any need for the "central" mental hospital in Dundrum? Why not return inmates of Dundrum to their local areas to the local mental hospital or, even, to the local community? The treatment available locally is just as sophisticated as that available centrally. Local provision might be more appropriate in the sense that the patient/prisoner/client would be nearer their own locality and, thus, closer to their own local community full participation in which is the stated objective of mainstream mental health provision in Ireland.