Some 1,000 people signed a petition to save a city public nursing home from closure in a two and a half hour period on Saturday at Shop Street.
The Save St Francis Home campaign, led by city councillor Catherine Connolly, has collected 21,200 signatures so far calling on the HSE West and the Minister for Health not to close the 33-year-old facility in Upper Newcastle. The campaign began in July on Shop Street and expanded to outside the city’s churches, shopping centres and housing estates and has been gaining momentum since.
The HSE West announced last year it will close St Francis’ home as a residential centre, operating it instead as a daycare facility.
The decision was taken following an inspection by the HSE regulator HIQA which made several recommendations to enable it to meet new nursing home standards. The HSE said at the time that complying with this request would mean major and costly changes and would reduce the capacity of the unit significantly.
Cllr Connolly says in addition to the signature campaign a public meeting was held in the city recently at which five local TDs, Brian Walsh, Sean Kyne, Derek Nolan, Eamon O’Cuiv and Noel Grealish, together with Senator Trevor O’Cloherty, all agreed to back the campaign.
“Furthermore the three Government TDs confirmed that they would organise a meeting with the Minister for Health, James O’Reilly. The Save St Francis Home Committee are still waiting to hear from them. The question has to be posed at this point as to whether the Government TDs are going to ignore the 21,200 people in Galway who have clearly said keep this nursing home open and/or whether they are going to go back on their word given at a very public forum?”
Councillor Connolly said she has written again to the three government TDs on behalf of the campaign and asked them to honour their public commitment.
“In the meantime the latest count shows that just over 21,200 people have signed the petition. Most people have expressed outright anger at the stupidity of the HSE West decision to close such a wonderful public nursing home. Indeed the level of people’s anger was most apparent last Saturday when 1,000 people signed the petition. The campaign will continue she said on Shop Street this Saturday from 11am to 3pm.
“I tabled a motion at Monday’s night city council meeting and received the support of all councillors with the exception of Cllr Conneely, who refused to vote for the motion which called among other things for an urgent meeting with the Minister for Health.”
Councillor Connolly said she will also be raising the nursing home issue again at the next meeting of the HSE West’s regional health forum later this month.
