Children as young as five years old have been attending hospital emergency departments for self-harm, depression and suicidal thoughts
Children as young as five years old have been attending hospital emergency departments for self-harm, depression and suicidal thoughts.
That is according to information received from the Western Health Trust in N Ireland.
It also revealed an 11% rise during the first year of the pandemic, compared to the year before, in those aged 18 and under attending emergency departments for serious mental health issues.
The figures relate to Altnagelvin, South West Acute and Omagh Hospitals.
Among those was a five-year-old referred by a GP for "depression and suicidal thoughts" and a suicidal nine-year-old brought in by police.
There were 473 children and young people who arrived at the emergency departments in the year prior to the pandemic, including 67 children aged 14 and under.
This had risen to 527 in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic between March 2020 and February 2021, with 102 of them aged 14 and under.
Although these figures take into account the first twelve months of the pandemic for annual comparison purposes, an upward trend has continued with the most recent figures given up until the end of August this year.
