Huge turnout at Nenagh rally
Labour Party TD Alan Kelly said that seeing so many people turn out for last Saturday's protest march against the repurposing of Nenagh's new nursing home was one of the proudest days in his political career.
“It was absolutely incredible”, said Deputy Kelly, addressing the crowd after the march ended outside the locked entrance gates to the new €24 million community nursing home beside the hospital in Tyone.
“We are going to continue this fight to the bitter end,” declared the Labour TD, referring to the campaign of opposition to a move by the HSE and the Department of Health to repurpose the new home for the elderly into a privately-run stepdown sub-acute facility to ease pressure on the overcrowded University Hospital Limerick (UHL).
Deputy Kelly said securing a new state-of-the art community care home for the elderly in town became a big issue for him 13 years ago when the only other state-run home in the town, Saint Conlon's at Church Road, was condemned by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa).
He said he was delighted as a member of government in 2015 “after a lot of fighting” to secure €24 million in funding to build a new home at Tyone to replace Saint Conlon's.
He said construction of the home had since been completed with taxpayers' money - to be used as a care centre for the elderly in the community.
Vociferously opposing the move to now repurpose the building, Deputy Kelly insisted that the unit had to be used for the purposes for which it was built - as a long stay residential care home.
He said lack of capacity meant only 21 elderly people from the community could be cared for in the Saint Conlon's in Church Road.
He said the reality was that there were at least 30 other people in the local area in need of long stay residential care who could not access care in Saint Conlon's. Now the gates of the new home in Tyone had been locked on these people and residents of Saint Conlon's who were looking forward to moving out of the obsolete conditions.
It was worrying that the HSE was going to continue to operate a condemned care home on a temporary basis until additional space was found in UHL to treat patients.
Deputy Kelly said Nenagh had already been “screwed” in 2008 when the local hospital lost its Accident and Emergency Department.
“But we won't get screwed again. We won't put up with it because two wrongs don't make a right,” he declared to sustained cheering.
“Who’s going to fight for the elderly if we don't fight for them. We have to fight for them and will continue fighting for them,” he declared, vowing that the campaign would not stop until the HSE and the Department of Health abandoned the plan to repurpose the new care home.
MORRIS’ MESSAGE
Independent Nenagh councillor Seamie Morris, who was the only other politician to address the protesters, said the Local Elections in the Nenagh Electoral area on June 7 should be viewed as a referendum on preserving the new care home for the purposes for which it was built.
Thanking the people for turning out to support the march in such large numbers, he said the last time he had witnessed such a big crowd at a protest in Nenagh was in January 2009 when people marched to show their opposition to the closure of the Accident and Emergency Department at the local hospital.
He said that back then politicians “talked down to us from a stage in Banba Square telling us we were getting a worldclass acute health service” in the Mid-West, adding, “we didn't get it”.
Cllr Morris said failure to deliver such a service in the Mid-West had led to the current protest over the “absolutely crazy” decision by the HSE and department to repurpose the new care home.
He said the people of Nenagh should not believe HSE management's pledge to use the new home for what it was originally intended when more beds came on stream at UHL.
Cllr Morris said that in 2009 HSE management promised to develop 610 acute beds at UHL - “15 years later we have 530 - so I ask you: do not believe a thing that you are being told by HSE management about getting back our unit.”
Cllr Morris dismissed a proposal to use some of the new building on a temporary basis as both a care home for the elderly and as a stepdown facility for patients at UHL. He insisted it should be used only as a community nursing home.
He urged voters to challenge candidates from the three government parties and supporters of that administration when they called looking for votes in the run up to the local elections. “Ask them how do they think this is a win for the people of the Mid-West?”