A devastated mum has told of her shock when five-year-old told her he "wanted to die".
Cork mum Liz McGann was left distraught after son TJ said he wanted to go to heaven.
Liz reached out to the CAMHS mental health service and was told that they didn’t have enough consultants to take on TJ, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s.
An emotional Liz said in a Facebook post: “Imagine being 5 years old and having suicidal thoughts or worse trying to see what you need to do in order to go to heaven because the people in your brain tell you your bad and make your mom sad so at least if your in heaven you can’t be bad anymore.
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“Sounds awful. Well that’s the conversation I had with TJ three weeks ago when he got so upset he told me he wanted to die.”
When she kept pushing to get TJ professional help, a covering psychologist said her son’s mental health was fine and blamed his suicidal ideation on Asperger’s.
Liz slammed the mental health services saying: “Now I know people with Aspergers and people without and just because you have it does not mean you will mental health problems and just because you don’t have it does not mean you will have mental health problems, anyone can have mental health problems but my son is five, he’s five and he has mental health problems and the services that are there will not help him.
“He has been on the waiting list for assessment for three years and after going private we got a diagnosis but now this diagnosis isn’t good enough for CAMHS.”
She also said that the psychologist told her to give TJ an antihistamine to calm him down.
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Liza said: “We have been pushed from pillar to post in order to get him services, countless calls, emails, letters, you name it and still we have no answers as to why he’s been left wait for so many years.
“After arguing back and forth with this “professional” she told me his name was going to be put on the waiting list to be seen and my reply was what if in the meantime his mental health deteriorates further, her reply was to give him an antihistamine so as to sedate him???”
She added: “Our country and system frustrates me everyday when trying to get TJ services and the help he needs but we’ve been lucky enough that he is getting immense help in school and at home and we are so grateful that he has the support he does get.”
