A local city councillor is urging Government TDs and the chairperson of the HSE West’s regional health forum to put pressure on the Minister for Health to keep a city public nursing home open.
Councillor Catherine Connolly is calling on Fine Gael TD Brian Walsh, Labour deputy Derek Nolan and Cllr Padraig Conneely, the HSE forum chairperson, to urge the Minister, Dr James Reilly, to rethink the controversial decision taken by the health authority to close St Francis’ Nursing Home in Upper Newcastle as a residential facility.
There was public outcry when the announcement was made last year that the 33-year-old facility would operate as a daycare centre in the future.
The decision followed an inspection by the HSE regulator HIQA which make a number of recommendations to enable the home to meet new nursing standards. The HSE said apart from the cost of the changes, which would include providing single en suite rooms, these would result in a very significant reduction in bed numbers.
Cllr Connolly, who received unanimous support from city councillors this week for her motion calling on the HSE to keep the facility open, says the nursing home is an “integral” part of the fabric of the community.
“It has and continues to provide the most wonderful service. To close such a facility makes absolutely no sense and it is not acceptable that the HSE West are using the HIQA report to justify such a closure and currently are not accepting any new admissions,” she states. “This report, which significantly was carried out as a result of an unannounced visit in September 2009, gave glowing praise to the staff and the service and indeed inspectors commented on the food as ‘excellent’. The only difficulty was in relation to the building and in particular lack of en suite facilities which could be easily remedied.
“Moreover well before the HIQA report, the HSE West had permitted and allowed a situation to develop where at any given time there were seven beds empty with lack of sufficient staff given as the reason and a waiting list of up to 45 patients.”
Cllr Connolly says the policy of the previous government was to privatise services for older people leaving them with no choice but to go into private nursing homes if they needed fulltime care.
“There is now a new government however, whose local representatives, including newly elected TDs Brian Walsh and Derek Nolan have publicly backed my call to keep the nursing home open.
“I am now calling on the same TDs and indeed the FG chairman of the health forum to exert pressure on the Government and the Minister to keep the home open. Furthermore the motion passed unanimously by the city council will be passed on to the Minister for Health and I will be awaiting his reply.”
