Patients on the edge of the health care system - Focus: child and adolescent psychiatry

Patient groups without lobbies are those that experience most problems related to ill-balanced distribution policies concerning public health services. This particularly applies to children and adolescents with mental health problems, often living (with their families) under rather precarious conditions. This article attempts to shed some light on the scope of health care services for this group in Austria. Given the Austrian situation, which is characterised by a major lack of adequate services for mentally impaired children and adolescents, international health care standards for this young patient group have not been met by far. Hence, families with children and adolescents with special (mental) needs often face situations they cannot deal with or which they cannot afford. Against this backdrop, current distribution policies in the context of health care services need to be re-designed and politicians called to take concerted action in favour of deprived patient groups.