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	<span style="font-size:16px;"><font face="Trebuchet MS, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 38px;">Psychiatrist targets lenders on behalf of patients feeling strain</span></font><span style="line-height: 38px; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif;">&nbsp;over increased financial pressures</span></span></h2>
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		A leading psychiatrist is writing to banks on behalf of vulnerable patients telling them he will hold them responsible in the event of a patient&#39;s suicide.</h2>
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		Dr Ivor Browne says he has been seeking out the names of bank staff responsible for the pressure his patients are under before issuing them with the formal notice.</p>
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		Dr Browne, former chief psychiatrist of the Eastern Health Board, said the action is &quot;making waves&quot; in favour of patients who can no longer cope with mounting pressure.</p>
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		&quot;I am hearing people who are being hassled and who are being threatened that their homes will be repossessed,&quot; Dr Browne said.</p>
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		&quot;I am writing letters to the banks holding them personally responsible if this man commits suicide.&quot;</p>
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		&quot;Unless you can make them take personal responsibility, it is very difficult to get at them,&quot; he said.</p>
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		&quot;I would write to the individual who would seem to be implicated. The name that I can get,&quot; he explained, adding &quot;I think it is making waves in the background&quot;.</p>
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		In a call to other health professionals who are treating people in similar circumstances, Dr Browne said these exceptional times called for direct action: &quot;I am there to try to help in whatever way I can, and if there is something or someone that is clearly putting unfair pressure on patients, then I think that you have to address that.&quot;</p>
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		A move by health professionals who are concerned about the welfare of their patients could lead banks to rethink their debt-collection strategy &ndash; for fear of future lawsuits.</p>
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		The Master of the High Court has previously warned that the banks are driving some borrowers who can not pay their debts to suicide.</p>
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		Ed Honohan, brother of Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan, said he had dealt with several debt cases where the borrowers had subsequently taken their own lives.</p>
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		The news comes as suicide campaigners have accused lending institutions of adding to the suicide crisis by harassing people crippled by debt and struggling to cope with the recession.</p>
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		<a href="http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Paul_Kelly" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em; color: rgb(92, 139, 63); margin-bottom: 0px !important;">Paul Kelly</a>, CEO of Console, welcomed the move by Dr Browne and called on other clinicians to take action if they made a &quot;good clinical decision&quot; that a person&#39;s life may be in danger.</p>
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		&quot;If their client is at risk and in great distress, and the clinician or therapist has a fear their patient could take their own life, then banks need to be made fully aware of this and steps need to be taken to ensure the individual is protected,&quot; he said.</p>
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		He added: &quot;We are dealing with calls every day where people feel suicidal because of the pressure from banks and lending institutions. In one case, we dealt with a man who walked out of the bank after his loans were foreclosed and he took his own life. People are telling us &#39;I would be better off dead&#39; rather than continue with the pressure they are being put under.&quot;</p>
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		<strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 12px; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 0px !important;">NIAMH HORAN</strong><span style="font-size: 12px; text-transform: uppercase;">&nbsp;&ndash; 14 JULY 2013</span></p>
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		<a href="http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/top-prof-tells-the-banks-ill-blame-you-for-suicides-29418331.html">http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/top-prof-tells-the-banks-ill-blame-you-for-suicides-29418331.html</a></p>
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