- Email: [email protected]
Spain needs more psychiatric units for children
POLICY AND PEOPLE
UK nuclear power station under threat from international pressure als are supported by the 15 OSPAR countries, the UK government, which is an OSPAR signatory, will be legally obliged to act. Irish ministers are calling for the complete cessation of activities at Sellafield. Danish ministers have proposed a more moderate motion, which advocates that British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) suspend reprocessing at the plant to allow the possibility of dry storage of spent fuel to be investigated. These motions will require a two-thirds majority to become legally binding. The Danish Environment Minister, Sven Auken, said that although there was a psychological difference in the govChernobyl plant under threat of closure ernments’ approaches, it was The Ukranian government ordered on March 29 unlikely that Sellafield would that a plan to close the Chernobyl nuclear re-open following a suspenplant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear sion unless operations were accident, be prepared by the end of the year. completely changed. The The West has long demanded the closure of Irish government is reported the plant, but Ukranian ministers said the final to be slightly disappointed approval must come from Ukraine’s President, with the Danish motion, sayLeonid Kuchma. Kuchma has promised the US ing that it felt there was no Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, that the option but to go for “the terplant would be closed down, but he has mination factor”. reiterated the need for international experts to The director of Sellafield, work out a plan to compensate the Ukraine for Brian Watson, said on the the energy the plant provides. Haroon Ashraf BBC Radio’s Today pro-
rish and Danish ministers will try a a joint attempt to close down the UK’s controversial Sellafield reprocessing plant at a major international meeting on marine pollution to be held in June. Irish and Danish ministers met in Dublin, Ireland, on March 27 to discuss tactics and motions that they will put forward to suspend or terminate activity at Sellafield, when the signatories of the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR Convention) meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, in midJune. If the Irish and Danish propos-
I
gramme on March 28 that the Irish–Danish strategy of using the OSPAR convention could deal a fatal blow to Sellafield’s reprocessing operations. “There is more steam behind them and the future of the plant is being put in doubt”, he said. Meanwhile, the Nuclear Energy Agency, an arm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), concluded—after a 6-year investigation—that reprocessing is worse than storage, even when the most optimistic assumptions about radiation levels in stored fuel were considered. OECD’s report will be presented at the OSPAR meeting. On March 30, senior BNFL executives told the influential House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee they were prepared to “think the unthinkable” about ending reprocessing at the controversial Cumbrian plant. BNFL chairman, Hugh Collum, added that it was unlikely that BNFL would meet any of six targets set by the government for this year, including a 25% reduction in costs and profit improvements. Karen Birchard
Spain needs more psychiatric units for children
News in brief
T
Mental-health education On March 30, the Australian government launched “MindMatters”, a health-education package for secondary schools. The programme tackles mental-health issues, particularly depression, and shows through practical lessons and discussions that depression can be managed. The resource includes a plan for managing mental-health problems in schools and a schoolbased response to preventing selfharm and suicide.
he Minors’ Attorney’s Office of Madrid, Spain, made a written appeal on March 28 to a High Court judge to ask that Spain’s national health service provide specialist treatment centres for children and adolescents with mental-health problems. Félix Pantoja, a minors’ attorney at the Superior Court of Madrid, made the appeal after he was made aware that a 9-year-old suicidal child and a 17-year-old with schizophrenia were interned in conventional psychiatric units for adults. Pantoja noted that experts have advised against placing children and adults together in the same psychiatric centre and that the absence of specialist units for minors in Madrid violates the judicial protection law for under-age patients. The law states that the “internment of minors must be done in a mental-health centre adapted to their age”. The appeal reflects the scarcity of centres for minors with psychiatric disorders in most autonomous
1250
communities in Spain. In practice, this means that minors are being put in general psychiatry centres, albeit with their own rooms, or that they are being treated at home. The problem is worsened by the fact the Spain is the only European Union country where child psychiatry, as a speciality, does not officially exist. Blanca Reneses, head of the department of mental health of Madrid’s regional government, said on March 30 that minors and adults with psychiatric disorders do receive appropriate attention and are treated separately in the hospitals of the region. However, Javier Urra, Children’s Ombudsman of Madrid’s regional government, noted that giving a child his or her own room in a general psychiatric unit is not a replacement for sending a child to a specialist centre. If adults and children are placed together, there are situations where an adult’s behaviour could harm a child, he said.
Balkan war syndrome? Belgian Health Minister, André Flahaut, is sending a team to Kumanovo, on the Macedonia–Kosovo border, where 255 Belgian soldiers are stationed, to investigate claims of a “Balkan syndrome”. Ancedotal evidence has suggested that some of the 14 000 Belgian servicemen and women who have served in the former Yugoslavia have had health problems including chronic fatigue and diarrhoea.
Xavier Bosch
THE LANCET • Vol 355 • April 8, 2000
UK nuclear power station under threat from international pressure als are supported by the 15 OSPAR countries, the UK government, which is an OSPAR signatory, will be legally obliged to act. Irish ministers are calling for the complete cessation of activities at Sellafield. Danish ministers have proposed a more moderate motion, which advocates that British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) suspend reprocessing at the plant to allow the possibility of dry storage of spent fuel to be investigated. These motions will require a two-thirds majority to become legally binding. The Danish Environment Minister, Sven Auken, said that although there was a psychological difference in the govChernobyl plant under threat of closure ernments’ approaches, it was The Ukranian government ordered on March 29 unlikely that Sellafield would that a plan to close the Chernobyl nuclear re-open following a suspenplant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear sion unless operations were accident, be prepared by the end of the year. completely changed. The The West has long demanded the closure of Irish government is reported the plant, but Ukranian ministers said the final to be slightly disappointed approval must come from Ukraine’s President, with the Danish motion, sayLeonid Kuchma. Kuchma has promised the US ing that it felt there was no Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, that the option but to go for “the terplant would be closed down, but he has mination factor”. reiterated the need for international experts to The director of Sellafield, work out a plan to compensate the Ukraine for Brian Watson, said on the the energy the plant provides. Haroon Ashraf BBC Radio’s Today pro-
rish and Danish ministers will try a a joint attempt to close down the UK’s controversial Sellafield reprocessing plant at a major international meeting on marine pollution to be held in June. Irish and Danish ministers met in Dublin, Ireland, on March 27 to discuss tactics and motions that they will put forward to suspend or terminate activity at Sellafield, when the signatories of the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR Convention) meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, in midJune. If the Irish and Danish propos-
I
gramme on March 28 that the Irish–Danish strategy of using the OSPAR convention could deal a fatal blow to Sellafield’s reprocessing operations. “There is more steam behind them and the future of the plant is being put in doubt”, he said. Meanwhile, the Nuclear Energy Agency, an arm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), concluded—after a 6-year investigation—that reprocessing is worse than storage, even when the most optimistic assumptions about radiation levels in stored fuel were considered. OECD’s report will be presented at the OSPAR meeting. On March 30, senior BNFL executives told the influential House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee they were prepared to “think the unthinkable” about ending reprocessing at the controversial Cumbrian plant. BNFL chairman, Hugh Collum, added that it was unlikely that BNFL would meet any of six targets set by the government for this year, including a 25% reduction in costs and profit improvements. Karen Birchard
Spain needs more psychiatric units for children
News in brief
T
Mental-health education On March 30, the Australian government launched “MindMatters”, a health-education package for secondary schools. The programme tackles mental-health issues, particularly depression, and shows through practical lessons and discussions that depression can be managed. The resource includes a plan for managing mental-health problems in schools and a schoolbased response to preventing selfharm and suicide.
he Minors’ Attorney’s Office of Madrid, Spain, made a written appeal on March 28 to a High Court judge to ask that Spain’s national health service provide specialist treatment centres for children and adolescents with mental-health problems. Félix Pantoja, a minors’ attorney at the Superior Court of Madrid, made the appeal after he was made aware that a 9-year-old suicidal child and a 17-year-old with schizophrenia were interned in conventional psychiatric units for adults. Pantoja noted that experts have advised against placing children and adults together in the same psychiatric centre and that the absence of specialist units for minors in Madrid violates the judicial protection law for under-age patients. The law states that the “internment of minors must be done in a mental-health centre adapted to their age”. The appeal reflects the scarcity of centres for minors with psychiatric disorders in most autonomous
1250
communities in Spain. In practice, this means that minors are being put in general psychiatry centres, albeit with their own rooms, or that they are being treated at home. The problem is worsened by the fact the Spain is the only European Union country where child psychiatry, as a speciality, does not officially exist. Blanca Reneses, head of the department of mental health of Madrid’s regional government, said on March 30 that minors and adults with psychiatric disorders do receive appropriate attention and are treated separately in the hospitals of the region. However, Javier Urra, Children’s Ombudsman of Madrid’s regional government, noted that giving a child his or her own room in a general psychiatric unit is not a replacement for sending a child to a specialist centre. If adults and children are placed together, there are situations where an adult’s behaviour could harm a child, he said.
Balkan war syndrome? Belgian Health Minister, André Flahaut, is sending a team to Kumanovo, on the Macedonia–Kosovo border, where 255 Belgian soldiers are stationed, to investigate claims of a “Balkan syndrome”. Ancedotal evidence has suggested that some of the 14 000 Belgian servicemen and women who have served in the former Yugoslavia have had health problems including chronic fatigue and diarrhoea.
Xavier Bosch
THE LANCET • Vol 355 • April 8, 2000