Protesters refute HSE claims over hospital bed closures

BED closures at a West Cork community hospital are necessary to meet fire safety standards, otherwise the hospital would fail a mandatory registration process, the Health Service Executive (HSE) has claimed.

Yesterday the HSE said independent assessors, Maurice Johnson and Partners, consultants in fire safety engineering, had made recommendations that Clonakilty Community Hospital needed to implement in order to obtain fire certification, necessary for registration. Deirdre Scully, local HSE operations manager, integrated services, said their biggest problem at the hospital was in relation to Block One, where 16 beds face closure.

“We are reducing beds and we need to install a corridor to be fire compliant. It is part of HIQA’s registration process that we have to have a fire certificate,” Ms Scully said.