HSE marks retirement of one of its 'long time service leaders' from the south-east

This week, the HSE marked the retirement of one of its long time service leaders in the south-east.

Since 1999, Gerard O’Neill has been Director of Adult Counselling Services for counties Carlow, Kilkenny, South Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford.

A native of Clogh, County Kilkenny, Gerard worked in the National Health Service in the UK before taking up a position in 1998 with the then South-Eastern Health Board as Deputy Nursing Officer in the Waterford Mental Health Services.

A year later, as the National Counselling Services were being developed, Gerard began in the position as the South-East’s regional director. In the time since, Gerard has been centrally involved in a number of developments in these services.

Gerard O’Neill played a leading role in the establishment of the Self-Harm Intervention Programme (SHIP).

The SHIP service is a unique, specialised counselling service provided in the South East to people who are self-harming.

The SHIP programme, involving the HSE’s mental health services and counselling services and National Office for Suicide Prevention, supports their objectives of reducing suicide in Ireland.

The service has proven successful in supporting short-term outcomes associated with longer-term reduced suicide risk, bringing a number of risk factors from well below to normal functioning levels over the course of treatment.

Gerard also developed the therapeutic approach used in the SHIP service as part of completing his Doctorate in Psychotherapy in 2009.

Over the last 24 years, Gerard and his colleagues have seen the National Counselling Service provide counselling and psychotherapy to a wide range of clients, free of charge and using qualified, accredited and experienced counsellor/therapists to support people in improving their quality of life and reduce their psychological distress through the provision of evidence-based, professional, client-centred counselling.

In recent years, as the HSE/South East Community Healthcare’s Director of Counselling Services, Gerard has been based in offices at the Lismore Park Primary Care Centre in Waterford.

Gerard was joined there by colleagues and his wife Assumpta for an occasion last week to mark his retirement.