St Mary’s losing its fight for survival

As Cork hospital loses services its future remains unclear, writes Catherine Shanahan

STARVED of staff, crippled by budget cuts, services bled dry, the North Infirmary, the only remaining general hospital on Cork city’s northside, breathed its last on November 27, 1987.

Twenty-two years on, the only other hospital on the city’s northside not in private ownership is following a similar pattern: staff are being redeployed, services transferred and Health Service Executive (HSE) proposals for future activity on the site have moved from a purely medical focus to a mixture of retail, community and primary and continuing care.

This is the kind of scenario that could cause deceased Labour TD Gerry O’Sullivan to turn in his grave; as possibly the most vocal critic of the North Infirmary’s closure, at the time he declared the building would “stand as a monument to the people in Dublin who had taken the hospital away”.

Today, the only caring aspect of this historic building is the comfort it offers to tourists and business folk in the form of the Maldron Hotel.

The first public whiff of change at St Mary’s came in March 2008 when the Health Service Executive (HSE) announced it was to build a 50-bed community nursing unit on the hospital’s substantial grounds.

At the time Fine Gael city councillor Joe O’Callaghan welcomed the plan, saying it would copper-fasten the jobs at St Mary’s, about 220, and also lend weight to the viability of putting the proposed new merged hospital between the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) and the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH) on this 30-acre site. It did neither. Instead, Cork University Hospital (CUH), MUH and SIVUH are absorbing St Mary’s staff; the HSE has flagged its intention to move pain medicine from St Mary’s to MUH; plastic surgery to the SIVUH and planned orthopaedic surgery and rehabilitation services to SIVUH. The merger of MUH and SIVUH has been put on the back burner, together with any possibility of a major medical facility for the northside of Cork city and the developing county surrounds of Blarney, Tower and Killeens.

Workers and local elected representatives are up in arms. Labour Cllr Michael O’Connell said the main issues include the recent shift of focus to bring retail into the mix in an area that already has a large shopping complex on nearby Harbour View Road.

“The shopping centre in Knocknaheeny was at the hub of the regeneration plan for the area. It was never envisaged that there would be another so close,” he said. The other issue was that at one point St Mary’s was earmarked as a rehabilitation unit for the entire south, and that has now clearly gone by the board.

The HSE has met with Cork City Council to discuss the potential for the development of the grounds, which include the proposal to develop a major road through the site. Pat Healy, regional director of operations, HSE South, said a local area plan for the site, which would incorporate health facilities such as a major primary care centre, retail and community services, will now be drawn up.

This is despite a vote by city council prior to last year’s local elections in favour of a motion that no retail be allowed proceed on the site. Cllr O’Connell said a motion calling on the council to ensure the site will not be used for anything other than medical or community services will be put before council later this month.

The HSE has, over the past year, mentioned relocating its ambulance HQ from the South Link Road to St Mary’s and building a second 50-bed community care unit, but neither has come to pass. On the cards now is the closure of the hospital’s 90-plus in-patient beds by the end of the year and the loss of orthopaedic surgery to SIVUH. None of this should come as any surprise to those who took on board the recommendations of the Review of Acute Hospitals, published last year, with the exception of the choice of SIVUH over MUH, given the latter was flagged in the review.

So far, there is nothing to indicate the closure of St Marys’ very busy outpatient department, the only outpatient orthopaedic department in the country. It will continue to operate a health centre, an outreach maternity clinic, intellectual disability services and mental health services.

The HSE has mentioned a primary care centre for the site. But can St Mary’s still be considered a hospital without any in-patient beds? The director of reconfiguration in the HSE South, Prof John Higgins, said no hospital would close on foot of reconfiguration. Last night he was standing over his words.

For some, the end of St Mary’s as we know it marks the passing of another institution of the northside.

Labour city Cllr John Kelleher compares it to the loss of the North Infirmary. “It was near and convenient to people in Gurranabraher, Knocknaheeny and the like, all of whom visited it as some point and whose nearest in-patient service will now be south of the Lee.”