Clifden District Hospital can operate only seven inpatient beds due to staff shortages, according to a new report from the Health Information Quality Authority.
Male and female patients are now mixed in a single ward, and there has been a 66 per cent decline in bed numbers since HIQA last inspected the then 21-bed respite facility in 2020, when it operated at least two separate wards.
In April last year, the HSE announced that it plans to replace Clifden Community Hospital and the attached St Anne’s Community Nursing Unit (CNU ) as part of a €103 million capital funding programme for counties Galway and Roscommon.
This followed a public meeting in Clifden, in March 2024, attended by a reported 200 people, and several local politicians, after Clifden Hospital was forced to close temporarily due to shortages of nursing and care staff.
The latest double HIQA inspection, carried out between December 2024 and March this year, highlighted that staffing shortages at the hospital are regularly overcome by temporarily redeploying staff from the nearby St Anne’s CNU, and that local GPs and West-Doc are relied upon to fill the role of hospital medical officer.
Dignity and privacy concerns of patients in a mixed-gender ward are overcome by nursing staff in Clifden by operating two separate “bays” in the one functioning ward, and inspectors judged this arrangement to be ‘compliant’ with HIQA standards. However, the overall physical environment was recorded as only ‘partially compliant’ due to concerns about cleaning and linen facilities, and some issues with management committees meant HIQA also scored Clifden only ‘partially compliant’ concerning governance issues.
Clifden District Hospital provides convalescence care, respite care and palliative care for the Connemara region. Since 2022, the HSE has offered respite patients to move from Cifden, 100km away, to Merlin Park Hospital.
In a statement, HIQA said healthcare in the Clifden facility was impacted by its design and physical environment.
The hospital was judged on 11 categories, with five deemed ‘compliant’, four ‘substantially compliant’, and two ‘partially compliant’. No areas were deemed ‘Non-Compliant’, or received the top rating of ‘National Standard’.
