THERE ARE “serious concerns” the Health Service Executive will close the only HIV respite facility in the State after it stopped accepting new admissions in the past week.
Dublin Aids Alliance has written to the executive seeking “urgent clarification” after the Rowan Ward at Cherry Orchard hospital, Ballyfermot, Dublin ceased accepting patients.
The 18-bed ward is the only facility in the State providing respite and medical care to long-term HIV sufferers. It facilitates up to 300, often homeless or drug-using, sufferers per year and also has three long-stay patients.
Director of the alliance Anna Quigley said there had been rumours about its imminent closure “for a few weeks now”.
“It would be devastating for the people who use it, many who have difficulty managing their illness. We know from other service providers that access to the Rowan Ward is seen as essential to their health. The HSE has refused to say what’s happening, which is not good. We have written to them for urgent clarification about what’s happening because if they are planning on closing it they need to say so now, and start immediately planning on where the patients are going to go instead,” she said.
Ann O’Flanagan, whose brother Larry (49), has been in the ward for 14 years, said: “I am very, very worried, but we are not being told anything.” Her brother contracted encephalitis – an infection in the brain – as a result of HIV in 1998 and is severely brain-damaged as a result.
“I’ve written to the Minister for Health, and I got a letter back from the HSE just saying it was reviewing the service. I’d fear they’d try and move him to a facility which just isn’t suitable for him. Rowan Ward is his home.”
Local People Before Profit councillor Bríd Smith said closure would be “very damaging for people with HIV and in particular for the poorest people with HIV, a lot of whom are homeless and have quite chaotic, sad lives”. She noted “people from all over the country use this unit”.
A spokeswoman for the executive said it was “constantly reviewing all service provision in the context of how best to deliver the service for the clients and in light of the current economic circumstances and staffing limitations as a consequence of the public sector moratorium”.
“No decision has been taken with regard to the Rowan Ward, Cherry Orchard. All stakeholders will be fully consulted in the event of any such decisions.”
