Central Mental Hospital to stop taking new patients

DANGEROUS or suicidal mental health patients, including prison inmates, will be left with nowhere to go from June 15 because the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum is closing to new admissions due to a staff shortage.

Several months ago the hospital informed HSE management that it had 25 nursing vacancies through staff leaving or retiring, but because of an embargo on all public service recruitment they could not be replaced. Since February, it wrote on several occasions to HSE assistant national director Hugh Kane telling him of the emerging crisis, but to no avail.

On May 28, senior management at the hospital concluded that given the present level of activity at the hospital it could not operate with that level of vacancies. It wrote to Mr Kane telling him that from June 15 it will close for admissions and will ultimately reduce bed capacity by 16 beds.