Mental Health chair said some Owenacurra residents were 'happy' to move away

The Owenacurra Centre in Midleton, where some residents said they had been trated appallingly.

The chair of the Mental Health Commission has told a resident of the Owenacurra mental health facility that some residents had been “happy” to move from their long-term placements there.

John Hillery, chair of the MHC, told Owenacurra resident Michael O’Sullivan that the Commission does “not underestimate the adverse impact the closure has had on your and other residents together with their families”.

He added, however, that he had been “informed that some residents were happy to move and are satisfied with where they have been moved to”.

Mr O’Sullivan, who has lived at Owenacurra since 2011, had written directly to the MHC in January to decry the perceived “appalling” treatment he and the 19 other residents of Owenacurra had been subjected to by the HSE, and said that the decision to close “should be overturned”.

“The reasons for closure have not stood up to examination,” Mr O’Sullivan wrote. “Our voices have not been listened to.” 

'Cruel'

He added that the way some residents had been moved “has been very cruel — best friends were sent to different places and only told on the morning of the move — they will never see each other again”.

He called for the MHC to investigate the Owenacurra debacle “independently”, stating that “up to now ... the same management has been appointed to answer the complaint”, which he said showed a “disregard for principles such as ‘not being a judge in your own case’ by public servants in this country”.

In responding, Mr Hillery apologised for the delay, saying that Mr O’Sullivan’s letter was not brought to the attention of the MHC board until two months after it had first been acknowledged by a Commission administrator. He reiterated, however, that the closure is “proceeding”.  “As you are aware, the closure is solely a decision for the HSE. It is not a matter for the MHC,” he said.

The MHC had been criticised by residents and their families following the announcement of the Owenacurra closure in June 2021, which the HSE had said resulted from adverse compliance reports for the centre delivered by the MHC.

That had led to accusations that the MHC reports had been “weaponised” in order to secure the closure, despite the fact that other mental health facilities in Cork which received far worse compliance reports from the Commission had remained open.

At a combative hearing of the Oireachtas disabilities committee last December, MHC chief executive John Farrelly, who had tried not to discuss Owenacurra at the committee, said the Commission’s silence regarding the closure had been “strategic”, adding that the Commisison had been “very quiet about this deliberately” in order not to “jeopardise” any potential court proceedings.

In his letter, Owenacurra resident Mr O’Sullivan had lambasted that “tactical” approach by the MHC, saying it made him “like a pawn in some game between the MHC and the HSE”.

Local Green councillor and Owenacurra campaigner Liam Quaide meanwhile criticised the MHC’s letter to Mr O’Sullivan, saying it “sidesteps clear responsibilities of the MHC under the Mental Health Act”. 

“Their role is to enforce the provision of placements that meet the needs of residents,” he said.

“In some cases, residents have been moved to substandard facilities outside east Cork that have received consistently lower MHC compliance ratings," Mr Quaide said in reference to critical MHC reports regarding two wards in St Stephen’s Hospital in Glanmire and St Catherine’s Ward in St Finbarr’s Hospital.