For the first time in 160 years, an imposing building which dominates Killarney, Co Kerry, and which once had more than 1,000 residents, was unoccupied last night.

The Psychiatric Nurses Association is calling for a full and independent inquiry into what it is calling a “Leas Cross” scenario, following the death of a woman recently moved from a psychiatric facility to a nursing home.

Wards in a psychiatric hospital earmarked for closure were “drab, bare, institutionalised and smelly”.

The union representing nurses at St Finan’s psychiatric hospital in Killarney has complained to the HSE about a private, out-of-hours GP service availing of what the union claims is rent-free accommodation at the hospital.

Senior HSE management have asked a psychiatric union representative to formally retract claims made about patients moved to nursing homes against their wishes and who later died.

ONE of the country’s largest mental hospitals should remain in public ownership, a town council has said.

A LARGE number of nurse retirements is impacting severely on the care of psychiatric patients in Kerry, it has been claimed.

THE Health Service Executive has strongly rejected a claim by the Psychiatric Nurses Association that residents of St Finan’s Hospital in Killarney are being transferred to another facility against their wishes.

An open letter to President Higgins

A VICTORIAN-ERA psychiatric hospital in Co Kerry, which has been blacklisted by inspectors’ reports for years, will finally close in 2014.

PLANS to close a Victorian-era psychiatric hospital in Killarney, which has been earmarked for closure for more than 10 years, have finally been received by the Mental Health Commission (MHC).

THE closure of Victorian-era psychiatric institutions has been official Government policy for more than 40 years, yet hundreds of mental health patients still remain in outdated, unsuitable buildings.

AN urgent call has been made for the building of alternative facilities to replace a Victorian psychiatric hospital, due for closure in Kerry.

THE retirement of an unprecedented number of psychiatric nurses in Kerry will have serous implications for mental health services in the county, a nurses’ union leader warned.

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) yesterday came under fire because of delays in providing community-based services for psychiatric patients in Kerry.

WITH the closure of St Finan’s Psychiatric Hospital in Killarney looming ever closer, the town council is stepping up pressure to obtain some of the land around the hospital for housing.

A CASH-STRAPPED council has been warned not to expect land for free — or even at a reasonable price — from the Southern Health Board.

NURSES in hospitals around the country are continuing their protests over staffing problems, safety and general working conditions.