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| Wednesday, 26 April 2006 10:55 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk
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Children as young as nine are self-harming and attempting suicide, the Royal College of Nursing annual conference has heard.
Rising numbers of young people are cutting their bodies, turning to drink or drugs or even trying to hang themselves, nurses were told.
But despite the problem, funding for child and adolescent mental health is being cut and there is a shortage of in-patient psychiatric beds for youngsters.
A recent report has put the number of young people self-harming at one in 15.
Jacqui Nelson, a child and adolescent mental health nurse from Northern Ireland, said: "I have had a nine-year-old who wanted to kill himself and had tried hanging himself.
"I have seen children of 11 and 12 who have cut themselves and there are children as young as nine who are self-harming in other ways, through eating disorders, alcohol or drugs. The problems have definitely increased since I started working 16 years ago.
"There is so much pressure on children now; pressure to do well educationally, bullying and other problems like physical, emotional and sexual abuse."
She added that Northern Ireland currently has no in-patient psychiatric beds for young people, despite the region having the highest rates of young male suicide in the UK.
School nurse Chris Etherington told the debate that only 12.5 per cent of 11 to 16-year-olds who self harm seek medical for their problem.
She said: "Sometimes it is their life experiences and trauma that has taught them to use these methods of coping and we need to give them new ways of feeling emotion. One young person told me: 'Cutting lets me feel something. When I do this it lets something out.'"
Nurses are divided in how to deal with self-harming patients. Some RCN members have called for the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s code of conduct to be changed to allow them to help patients self-harm in a controlled environment. They believe that banning people under their care from cutting themselves could do more harm than good.
The Department of Health is funding a pilot scheme that allows some in-patients to cut themselves as part of their care plan.
Chris Holley, who is involved with the project, said: "It is controversial but this is not about all people who self-harm and it is not about handing out cutting implements.
"It is about people who self-injure in order to manage their feelings and to help them live, rather than die."
She compared the practice with handing out clean syringes to drug addicts.
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