Teen addicts

Children as young as 13 are being admitted to the Psychiatric Hospital with substance abuse problems and related mental health issues.
And while senior consultant psychiatrist Dr Ermine Belle admitted the age range was wide, she told the SATURDAY?SUN: “This is a very big problem because we do not seem to be able in any way to contain the increase in numbers that are coming to us through substance abuse.
 “What we are seeing more and more is the poly-substance abuse where people are now using not one substance but two or three,” Belle added.
Admitting that the hospital was “really struggling” to deal with the problem, which was more prevalent in males, she said it was “really important for all of us who are in the health arena, particularly those of us in mental health, to recognise that we need each other and we need to support each other in this initiative to try particularly to solve the problems associated with our young males”.
Read the full story in today’s SATURDAY SUN.