The last patient to leave St Michael's Private Hospital, Dun Laoghaire, when it closed yesterday said its owners, the Sisters of Mercy, had "their own problems" but some senior consultants were more critical of the closure.
Television cameras surrounded an astonished Mr John Hancock (61) as he left St Michael's, which has served Dun Laoghaire, Blackrock, Bray and Wicklow as a private hospital since 1963.
Mr Hancock was in for tests prior to undergoing heart surgery. "It was a useful place to go for a small operation or for an adjustment to something simple," he said.
It was a great pity the hospital was closing, he added, since Dun Laoghaire was now such a thriving place but with no recruitment to their ranks, the nuns probably felt they had no option but to sell the place.
Consultant surgeon Mr Denis Mehigan deplored the loss of 100 jobs - between medical and administrative staff and service workers - and the lack of access to private treatment the hospital's closure would mean for hundreds of patients.
"It catered for many elderly people in particular who had basic B and C plan VHI cover, usually paid for by their children," said Mr Mehigan. This degree of cover would not give them access to the Blackrock Clinic or the Mater Private, for instance, and this would put additional strain on the scarce resources in the public hospitals, he said.
"The nuns were saying the hospital was losing money but it never had an adequate management structure," the consultant said. They had failed to implement a management consultants' report which the board had accepted. But it was no longer true to say that the hospital was losing money. "They made a small profit this year by setting up their own pharmacy etc but the nuns were adamant that they wanted to close the place," he said.
Attempts by a group of consultants at the Blackrock Clinic to take over the 65-bed St Michael's and keep it as a low-tech clinic were not successful, according to an unofficial spokesperson for the hospital, who said talks were in train, however, between the nuns and the Department of Health with a view to the public hospital at St Michael's taking over the private clinic.
Mr Mehigan was convinced, however, that the valuable site would be sold by the Sisters of Mercy "to a developer who will build an office block".