Projects which use vulnerable people to make money without providing them with essential services were condemned yesterday at a psychiatric nurses' conference.
Patients living in squalor and who needed a psychiatric nurse or a general nurse suffered because too few such nurses were employed, said Nurse Alice Leahy of Trust, which provides a medical service for homeless people in Dublin.
Yet money was spent ad nauseam on research projects on these people, projects designed to justify paying the administrators of the projects, she told the annual conference of the Association of Psychiatric Nurse Managers in Tullamore. Psychiatric hospitals were being increasingly replaced by nursing homes and bed and breakfast establishments for the housing of people with psychiatric problems.
Here, Ms Leahy alleged, they were looked after by untrained staff "and in some cases, security staff provide the caring role and administer medication." There was a danger of untrained staff using drugs to make patients easier to control.
She said professionals and untrained people were increasingly using the label "personality disorder" - generally considered untreatable - as a way of dismissing those who needed help.
"Many people suffering from schizophrenia have been labelled as such and it makes it all the easier to ignore the underlying problem," said Ms Leahy.
pomorain@irish-times.ie