An east Galway hospital is taking a healing approach to the environment by switching from oil to woodchip and pellet-fired central heating. St Brigid's Hospital in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, believes it might save the equivalent carbon dioxide emission of 40 homes annually in making the move.
A Waterford company, Natural Power Supply (NPS), has installed the new system at the hospital's acute short-stay unit, which treats patients with psychiatric conditions. The company has fitted two 80 kilowatt wood-burning boilers in the 70-year-old stone building to replace the existing 50 kilowatt oil boiler.
NPS project engineer Tim Carroll points out that the fuel is drawn from wood which is cut and chipped within a 30-mile radius of the hospital, and is stored at a depot just five miles away. About 190 tons of fuel will be required annually for the biomass boilers, which can burn both pellets and woodchips.
Rising heating oil costs and the demands of heating the unit influenced the decision by the hospital to switch, and it has agreed a three-year supply contract which guarantees the price of the fuel. The institution is cutting more than 330 tons annually of carbon dioxide emissions, Mr Carroll said - the equivalent emitted from heating 40 houses.
The conversion is the second such project in the western region. A similar wood-burning system was installed in the HSE West's St Francis's Nursing Home in Newcastle, Galway in late 2005 - and is believed to have been the first of its type in a State health facility.
Under a new scheme initiated by Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan, businesses, schools and hospitals can receive grant aid to cover the cost of installing biomass-fuelled and anaerobic digestion combined heat and power units (CHP). These units generate both heat and electricity on site, saving up to 25 per cent of energy used in conventional separate production.
In another development, the Health Service Executive (HSE) West has denied that therapeutic services are being cut back at St Brigid's Hospital, following a decision to close a dedicated therapy room. Galway East Fine Gael TD Ulick Burke had expressed concern late last week about the move.
The HSE West said the admission therapy room at St Brigid's had been run by "non-specialist therapy staff" in recent years. Patients could now benefit from appropriate therapies given by dedicated multidisciplinary specialist teams, it said, and nurses who worked in the admission therapy room would be redeployed to other "more critical parts" of the hospital.
"The transfer of these nurses to the wards will have no adverse impact on our patients. It is proposed that this room will continue to be available to patients who can be accompanied there by ward staff," HSE West said in a statement.
Clients were spending less time as in-patients in hospitals, with the transfer of many elements of mental health to community settings, it added.