Cardiac ward remains closed after sewage seeps into room

A CARDIAC ward at a new Dublin hospital remains closed after sewage from toilets seeped into the room for the fourth time last weekend.

Leakages have been occurring in a faulty piping sewage system in the new James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown since last September.

Fifteen patients in Cyprus Ward, who are recovering from heart attacks, were immediately moved to an adjacent part of the partially opened new building when sewage again leaked into the ward and an adjacent room last Sunday.

Mary Fogarty, an industrial relations officer with the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO), said they wanted an urgent meeting with the Northern Area Health Board because they had lost confidence in the board’s ability to deal with the problem.

“We are not talking about the old TB hospital that was built in the 1940s. It is just incredible that this has happened for a fourth time in a brand new facility on which millions of euro have been spent,” she said.

The Northern Area Health Board said repair work was to be carried out on a section of piping in one ward in the new hospital development.

Meanwhile, a row has erupted between the Midland Health Board and the INO over plans to open an elderly care unit in Birr, Co Offaly, that has been lying idle since 2002.

An MHB spokesperson claimed the INO refused to co-operate with their plan to open the 90-bed unit on a phased basis with the transfer 70 of patients from nearby St Brendan’s and Ely House to the new unit at the end of this month.

INO industrial relations officer Kevin O’Connor said it had been proactive in negotiations and was disappointed that the department and the MHB had done a U-turn on the deal brokered on staffing and extra beds.