Health Minister urged to honour hospital unit election pledge
The HSE closed the 19-bed St Bridget’s Ward at St Patrick’s geriatric hospital in Waterford city two years ago. Campaigners have been protesting at the hospital since.
The HSE at the time maintained the closure was vital but the decision was criticised by staff and local campaigners such as the Friends of St Patrick’s.
The calls on the minister yesterday coincided with an announcement that an interim board, consisting of HSE executives and Department of Health officials, is to be put in place after the current HSE board said it would be willing to stand down.
The HSE, under the previous government, said it planned to build a new 50-bed community nursing unit as a replacement for St Bridget’s.
However, campaigners maintain the HSE has still not ring-fenced funding for the new facility and an exact location for the unit has not been formally identified, despite promises made in early 2009.
Lunchtime protests have been carried out daily at St Patrick’s Hospital on John’s Hill for the last two years against the closure of St Bridget’s Ward.
For his part, Dr Reilly last year said Fine Gael would prioritise restoring and maintaining services at St Patrick’s, if the party was in Government.
When questioned on the matter by WLRfm last September, Dr Reilly specifically said if he were made minister for health he would “look at St Patrick’s to see how we could re-open it”.
He said St Patrick’s “is a perfectly good building with a perfectly good service and the patients and their families were happy with the service they were getting there”.
Waterford City Councillor Davy Walsh (Workers’ Party) yesterday said “he [Dr Reilly] backed the campaign” last year.
“He [Dr Reilly] supported the call to re-open St Bridget’s or to open the 50-bed unit. We’re not going to take this lying down.”
Waterford City Councillor Seamus Ryan (Labour), a member of the HSE Regional Health Forum South, said, there had been clear promises from Government on the issue over the past two years.
A Department of Health spokesman said while the current Capital Plan did not include St Patrick’s, the department is “currently considering the future HSE provision of residential facilities for older people”
