Belfast's Iveagh Centre provides care for children with learning disabilities and mental health needs.
The inpatient centre provides care for children with learning disabilities and mental health needs
Eamonn McNally, from the Children's Law Centre, said there needed to be a "robust support package" put in place for discharged patients and families to ensure its success."To give someone less than an hour's notice and say to them that you must take your child home without the proper support is a recipe for disaster," he told Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme.
These lengthy waits can cause children in acute hospital care to deteriorate, and can be "totally detrimental" to staff moral, Mr McNally said. "I have never suffered anxiety in my life, I actually felt sick that day," she told Good Morning Ulster. After speaking with the advocate at the centre, she was told to readmit her daughter to the centre where emergency staff were in place.Sinn Féin's Carál Ní Chuilín had written to health minister Robin Swann and the Belfast Health Trust, which runs the Iveagh Centre, seeking an "urgent solution".
"Young people who are discharged from the Iveagh Centre have a care plan in place to ensure they and their families have support."