North Tipperary Public Won’t Tolerate Donnelly’s Disgraceful Decision To Close Community Nursing Home
“The decision of Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly to close Nenagh’s New Community Nursing Home and privatise it is one of the most disgraceful decisions I’ve seen a Health Minister impose on a local community.
“The people of North Tipperary were screwed when Fianna Fáil closed Nenagh’s A&E and ICU in 2009 while reconfiguration never happened and the crisis in UHL has being consistent ever since.
“Now the same community is being screwed again. The people of Nenagh and North Tipperary are being screwed again.
“50 elderly members of our community who should be residents in the new Nenagh Community Nursing Home are now being discriminated against by Stephen Donnelly, this Government and the HSE. They will have nowhere to go now and their families are in absolute turmoil.
“Put simply, Minister Donnelly is sacrificing the most vulnerable members of our community to fix a problem he has presided over in UHL for years.
“The crisis in UHL is going to take many years to sort out so once they take over the new nursing home in Nenagh it may never come back into operation as a nursing home. The HSE have already changed their position three times. Firstly they guaranteed it would open the nursing home in 2015, then it said it would open 2 years from the time the new private operator was in place and now it from when the 96 bed block is built? If they can change their minds three times in two weeks you can imagine where this is going!
‘The trade unions of SIPTU, the INMO and FORSA have been very supportive of the workers in Conlon’s and I don’t believe any decision to privatise public jobs should be supported. There is a need to protect the workers in St Conlons and Nenagh hospital and the future provision of public healthcare.
“Most of all the public in Nenagh and North Tipperary won’t tolerate this. The residents families won’t tolerate this. The workers won’t tolerate this. This will be campaigned and fought against. We will fight Minister Donnelly, Fianna Fáil, this Government and the HSE to stop them from screwing the people of Nenagh and North Tipperary once again.”