By Paul McGill from NICVA
Published on 30 Jan 2007
An emergency plan by the government has failed to defuse the controversy over the detention of adults and even children at Muckamore Hospital.
Health Minister Paul Goggins and permanent secretary Andrew McCormick have already been forced to apologise after media coverage of patients with learning difficulties being locked up even though no risk was ever assessed.
Delays averaging three and a half years – and in one case totalling ten years – have been reported in releasing adults into the community.
An action plan to discharge all patients from learning disability hospitals, including Muckamore, includes a £3.5 million unit for children and young people and emergency accommodation in the meanwhile. There is also a promise to raise the numbers of patients who are resettled from 25 to 40 each year.
But it has already been criticised for putting too much emphasis on keeping children with learning difficulties in hospital rather than developing services that can help them in the community.
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