Call for mental health hospital facing closure to be replaced

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

The Mental Health Commission, in its 2009 report, has already called for the closure of St Finan’s Hospital, Killarney, in line with a Government report on the future of the mental health services.

Cormac Williams, local branch organiser of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA), has hit out at what he described as recent adverse publicity about the hospital and the cost of heating the sprawling old building, without enough consideration being given to the need for new care facilities.