THE HSE is to proceed with the closure of an acute psychiatric unit in Tipperary within the next eight months and transfer inpatient beds to adjoining counties.
Confirmation of the impending closure of the 49-bed St Michael’s Unit in Clonmel was given yesterday by the HSE at a series of briefings with staff and the media.
Consultants and GPs in the area have previously expressed total opposition to the move, saying it will cause upset to patients and their families, who will have to travel to Kilkenny city from south Tipperary or the midwest from north Tipperary as part of the change. The HSE conceded yesterday there are “still some concerns” about the loss of the acute unit from Clonmel.
However, it said it is now establishing new services for south Tipperary which will replace much of the need for acute inpatient psychiatric beds. These include a home-based treatment team, day hospitals in Clonmel and Cashel and an eight-bed “crisis house”, which will house patients who would otherwise have been admitted to hospital, for up to 72 hours.
Patients from north Tipperary who are being treated at St Michael’s will be transferred to the midwest by the end of October, reducing the Clonmel facility’s capacity from 49 beds to 29.
The next phase of the programme will see the development of the alternative services by the end of next March and the transfer of acute services to a 44-bed unit at St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny, which will then serve Kilkenny, Carlow and south Tipperary.
“St Michael’s Unit in Clonmel is an older unit about which the Mental Health Commission has highlighted a range of service and infrastructural issues,” the HSE said in a statement. “The unit is no longer fit for purpose and will cease to accept inpatient admissions as this change programme is delivered.”
It added that: “No services will cease until alternative community-based services are in place.”
Consultants who work at the hospital said earlier this year that the necessary upgrade works at St Michael’s could be done for less than €100,000, while the HSE is spending €2 million on the eight-bed “crisis house” in Clonmel and €3.5 million on a new day hospital and community mental health base in Clonmel.