Ideal care

WHENEVER Maureen O’Neill pulled open her hall door in Renard Point, she could see Valentia Island rising out of the Atlantic.

So when she got ill four years ago, it was a just a short journey to Valentia Island Cottage Hospital, where she was welcomed by staff and patients who knew her and her family.

It’s an ideal place, says her son Edward, a secondary school teacher in Killarney. “The staff know the family, the patient themselves — it’s more than a job to a lot of them. That’s what makes the difference between a community hospital and a large nursing home where people wouldn’t know each other.