HSE Plan To Not Open New Nenagh Nursing Home A Disgrace – Nenagh Being Screwed Again – The Local Community Must Rise Up Against This
“It is absolutely disgraceful that the HSE are planning to deprive North Tipperary of the new state of the art Nursing Home in Nenagh that has remained unopened since being completed last year.
“The overcrowding situation in UHL is so wrong but two wrongs don’t make a right and depriving elderly people and their families from Nenagh and surrounds of 50 nursing beds is a disgrace.
“I have a long history of providing funding and fighting for this new nursing home after HIQA said that it couldn’t continue in the long term. I have over the last few months been fighting for families to get the staff required to get this new home open.
“The decision to now to use it as a step down facility because of the overcrowding in UHL is so wrong. Where will the people who need these nursing home beds go now? I have families contacting me every week looking for nursing home care for their loved ones. What is this Government and their supporters going to say to these families now?
“We in Nenagh were screwed over in 2009 when we lost our A&E & ICU for reconfiguration in the Mid West which never happened. We are now being screwed a second time!
“What about the staff in St Conlon’s Nursing home who were expecting to move up to this new state of the art home? I visited them this week and they are so upset. They will not put up with this.
“What about the residents there and their families? Do they not deserve to have use of this facility? They are asking questions all the time now.
“What about HIQA who have been saying for years that this new nursing home was necessary to replace St Conlon’s?
“To top it all off this proposal for a step down facility is not going to be run or staffed by the HSE? It is going to be privatised? So the HSE can’t get the staff to open the new nursing home but that can get a private company in to run the facility for a purpose it wasn’t built for? It cost in excess of €23 million of taxpayers money to build this new nursing home and now they are going to throw away money on a private ‘for profit’ company by outsourcing HSE jobs.
“The trade unions are represented in St Conlon’s and Nenagh Hoapital and I’m sure they will fight this decision along with the local community to make sure it doesn’t happen.
“You could not make this up. It is totally wrong and I will oppose it fully and fight for the families of Nenagh and North Tipperary who deserve to have their elderly citizens looked after in a respectful and compassionate way in a building that was built for them.
“I’m asking everyone to help me in whatever way they can. We need everyone on board in this fight in order to win it.”