Staff owed wages after hospital shuts

STAFF are owed wages and holiday pay but investors are unlikely to lose out following the closure of the country’s newest private hospital just five months after it opened.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) confirmed yesterday that in addition to holiday pay, nursing staff are owed sums of money ranging from four weeks to a couple of months pay following the closure on March 9 of the Cork Medical Centre (CMC).

INMO industrial relations officer Michael Dineen said none of its members had received money in lieu of short notice for the closure of the hospital.

CMC, which opened amid much fanfare on October 15 last, closed last month with the loss of 75 jobs. The developers of the €90 million facility, the Sheehan Medical Group, blamed the closure on the refusal of the VHI to provide cover.

Yesterday, Mr Dineen said the INMO would be calling on the group to “behave honourably” towards their former employees.

“These are people who gave up good jobs and came in good faith to work at CMC and then, through no fault of their own, found themselves in this predicament. The company has an obligation to honour their commitment to staff and to pay the money that is due.

“Staff have been left in an invidious position because it doesn’t appear that a liquidator had been appointed and there is nowhere for them to turn,” he said.

Mr Dineen said without co-operation from the company, the only route open to former staff was to refer the matter, under the Payment of Wages Act, to the rights commissioner, which could take months.

Mr Dineen will meet with INMO members of CMC on Monday to discuss a course of action.

Meanwhile one of the investors in CMC, Cork-based businessman Michael O’Connell, said his investment is secure despite the fact that CMC Medical Operations Ltd is insolvent.

One of group of six who invested in the facility, Mr O’Connell said: “We obviously took precautions going in. Business is business and you either have guarantees or you don’t. Anyone in my group was guaranteed.”

Mr O’Connell, owner of Mocad Ltd, supplier of golf products, based on the Tramore Road in Cork city, said he had been instrumental in bringing the Sheehans to Cork.

“I brought [James] Sheehan down in February 2009 [to see the City Gate facility in Mahon] and everything went ahead from March 2009 only to be met with this disaster,” he said.

However he said he was “fairly confident” the facility would be taken over by the Mater Private.