Plans to temporarily reconfigure the Community Nursing Unit in Nenagh as a stepdown facility to alleviate pressure on UHL have been strongly rejected by a local campaign group.
The HSE is understood to be looking at appointing a private health care provider to staff and manage the new 50 bed unit for 18 to 24 months.
While this would provide much needed additional bed capacity to the UL Hospital Group it would have major consequences for residents of St Conlon’s who had been expecting to relocate to the new unit..
Conor Reidy from the Nenagh Needs Its A&E campaign says easing pressure on UHL should not come at such a cost.
“The Midwest Hospital Campaign and Nenagh Needs Its A&E cannot under any circumstances support a proposal that takes away a much needed resource from a particularly vulnerable demographic in our Nenagh and North Tipperary community. The residents and staff at St Conlon’s have preparing for this upgrade for years after HIQA identified flaws in the existing infrastructure.”
Conor Reidy says the new Community Nursing Unit in Nenagh should not become a casualty of the failed HSE reconfiguration.
“We have always encouraged the HSE to think outside the box on the ED crisis in the Midwest but we cannot and will not support the idea of robbing Peter to pay Paul. We believe it would be grossly unfair to have this new state of the art facility that would essentially be home to dozens of elderly members of our community snatched from them on the eve of relocating because of HSE and government mismanagement of reconfiguration.”
