Currently the unit only has 29 beds, meaning an upgrade would only amount to an additional 21 beds.
Plans to expand mental health capacity at Naas General Hospital would represent an increase of just 21 additional beds - with no delivery timeline confirmed - despite mounting concern over suicide and self-harm figures in Kildare.
The update emerged in a parliamentary exchange involving Sinn Féin TD Réada Cronin, with Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers confirming that individual departments will decide priorities and timelines under the National Development Plan.
Among the healthcare projects listed is an upgraded 50-bed Mental Health Lakeview ward at Naas General Hospital.
However, no specific delivery timeline has been confirmed for the project within the current National Development Plan period to 2030.
Currently the unit only has 29 beds, meaning an upgrade would only amount to an additional 21 beds.
The limited scale of the upgrade comes amid stark national and local data.
Locally, figures previously obtained by Kfm News show more than half of patients presenting with self-harm at Naas General Hospital last year were not admitted to an in-patient ward.
Just 26 per cent were admitted for medical or psychiatric care - significantly lower than comparable hospitals.
Naas General Hospital now has a higher non-admission rate than Tallaght and St James’s.
Despite this, Naas still recorded more than three hundred individuals presenting with self-harm over the year, and one in five of them returned with repeat self-harm - the highest repetition rate in the region.
Women made up the majority of self-harm patients at Naas General Hospital - 163 women compared to 142 men - and women were more likely to re-present, with almost one in four returning, compared with just under one in five men.
Self-harm presentations at Naas General Hospital are concentrated among young adults.
Women in their late teens and twenties form the single largest group presenting to the hospital, followed by men between the ages of 25-44.
In 2023, 14 people died by suicide in Kildare.
12 were male and two were female.
In 2022, the figure was 26, with 22 males and 4 females.
27 people died by suicide across the county in 2021.
Between 2017 and 2021, 110 people died by suicide in Kildare.
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