Senator wades in to asbestos row at psych hospital

A senator who worked at psychiatric hospital which is at the centre of an asbestos row says that HSE plans to remove the material while patients are still in situ is simply not an option.

Senator John Gilroy knows St Stephen’s Hospital better than most, having worked as a psychiatric nurse there for 20 years before being elected to the Seanad in 2011.

He has waded into the controversy after psychiatric nurses staged a protest outside the hospital to highlight their “grave concerns” about plans to remove asbestos from a ward while the patients continue to be housed there.