Ireland needs more than three hospital beds for adult eating disorder patients, a campaign group has urged. 

Cared Ireland, a support group for the families of those with eating disorders, has called on the Government to invest more in services for patients. 

Official figures have recorded a notable increase in the number of people presenting with eating disorders in recent years. 

However, Cared Ireland founder Paula Crotty said capacity for adult patients in the health service remains unchanged. 

 “If you asked somebody 20 years ago, they’d have told you there were three eating disorder beds for adults,” she explained to Lunchtime Live. 

“20 plus years later, it’s still the same.” 

Jennifer. Image: Supplied.

For Ms Crotty, the issue is deeply personal; her daughter Jennifer died in 2023 with an eating disorder, having struggled for nearly a decade with the disease. 

“We sought help for her straight away,” she recalled. 

“She took the rest of the year out - she was in college at the time - and we naively thought, ‘Ah, she’ll be back in college in September.’

“It wasn’t like that; Jennifer was in St Vincent’s really from April 2014 until June 2015. 

“At which point, through court order, we got Jennifer over to London to an eating specialised disorder unit in London. 

“She improved a little bit over there, came back home but there really wasn’t any supports services here to continue any kind of progress that she had made over there.” 

St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. Picture by: RollingNews.ie.

Fortunately, the family lived in the catchment area of St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, where the State’s three beds for adult eating disorder patients are located. 

Anyone who lives outside the catchment area is not entitled to a bed. 

“There are more beds that are needed for people,” Ms Crotty said. 

“The HSE and the National Clinical Eating Disorder Programme, they’re all saying, ‘Well, people are better off treated in an outpatient basis’. 

“That is true - but equally so, there isn’t enough services in the outpatient service for them to do better.

“So, they need to be admitted as inpatients.” 

Ms Crotty continued that while things “have improved” since Jennifer was first diagnosed 12 years ago, capacity in the health service needs to be scaled up. 

The HSE has been contacted for comment.

If you are impacted by the issued discussed in this article you can contact the helpline of BodyWhys, the Eating Disorders Association of Ireland, on (01) 2107906.

Main image: An empty bed in hospital room. Picture by: Tony Tallec / Alamy Stock Photo.