Minister stands firm on Nenagh's new Community Nursing Home
The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said that he is pressing ahead with the decision to reconfigure the new community nursing home in Nenagh into a stepdown facility for patients from the overcrowded University Hospital Limerick.
He said he was aware of the disappointment the move has caused for the 23 residents and staff of the old and existing nursing home in the town - Saint Conlon’s - who were looking forward to moving into the new unit.
The half century-old Saint Conlon’s in Church Road has been condemned as unfit for purpose by the Health Information and Quality Authority.
The minister made his comments at a meeting of the All Party Oireachtas Petition Committee.
Among those present was Tipperary TD Michael Lowry who asked the minister if he and his officials had reviewed their decision not to immediately transfer patients from St Conlon’s to the new Nenagh Community Nursing Unit at Tyone.
The minister indicated that he was pressing ahead with the decision to use the new €24m nursing unit as a temporary stepdown facility for patients from UHL. “This is a decision that’s been made - it’s not up for review.
“I can tell you categorically that the decision is not going to be overturned,” he said.
The minister said he had to do the right thing in terms of addressing safety and patient risk for the people of Tipperary and the people of Nenagh.
He said that for any of those people who end up in the emergency unit in UHL, he and the HSE wanted to make sure that they minimise the number of people on trolleys and reduce the amount of time a patient might spend on a trolley.
“We have to do it to keep people safe, including people from Tipperary, including people from Nenagh should they go into the Emergency Department and have to be admitted to the hospital,” he concluded.
CONTROVERSY
Deputy Lowry emphasised that there has been a lot of controversy surrounding this decision, saying that the situation has become very contentious and divisive locally, with patients and staff at St Conlon’s extremely annoyed while the public in Nenagh was “agitated”.
He stated that at a recent public protest his compromise proposal of a shared use of the new unit as a stepdown facility for UHL and as a community nursing unit for residents of Saint Conlon’s was dismissed and that people were given the impression that the decision to reconfigure could be overturned in its entirety.
The minister responded: “The decision was made, and I am not going to just pass the buck to the HSE. I was consulted on that decision and I am part of making that decision.
“It was made as we have elderly patients, frail patients and deteriorating patients, on trolleys in UHL, and whereas in the rest of the country the number of patients on trolleys is going down, in UHL it has gone up by 40% this year. It’s a very serious situation and we need to do whatever we can to alleviate the pressure on those patients and those healthcare workers.
“So, as a short-term measure, we’re using two community nursing units. We’re using a 20-bed unit in Clare and a 50-bed unit [in Nenagh],” the minister stated.
He added: “The local community is aware that there were 23 residents due to move into the new facility. I know they were looking forward to it and I know that this is frustrating for them and their families. I know it is disappointing but patient risk is the priority.”