After 11 months, Midleton still waits for team promised to establish mental health unit

The HSE has now admitted that the team has yet to be set up, and will not be constituted before HSE Cork/Kerry receives “capital approval for the unit”

With the proposed closure of the Owenacurra mental health facility in Midleton, which remains open with just six residents accommodated, some 18 months after it was supposed to shut its doors, east Cork will have no such facility.

A ‘development team’ to establish a new 10-person mental health unit in Midleton, Co. Cork, has yet to be formed, 11 months after it was promised by the HSE. 

In May 2022, the then chief officer for Cork/Kerry HSE Michael Fitzgerald wrote to local Cork TDs regarding the proposed “modernisation” of mental health services in east Cork, and promised to “provide a new 10-bed rehabilitative residential unit in Midleton town”, which would incorporate 24-hour staffing with a focus on supporting people “to return to their homes and communities”.