The Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) says its members at the Galway Hospice have "suffered enormously" since the effective closure of the 12-bed unit and the subsequent investigation of medication practices. Lorna Siggins, Western Correspondent, reports.
The union says nursing staff are "disheartened", "stressed" and "disappointed" at what it describes as "sensationalist media coverage" of the controversy surrounding the hospice.
In its response to this week's publication of an independent review of medication management practices commissioned by the Galway Hospice Foundation, the INO says it welcomes the review's release and looks forward to a phased reopening of the hospice, with adequate staffing.
Western Health Board and Galway Hospice Foundation representatives met in the wake of the review's publication, and it is understood that a timetable for reintroduction of referrals to the hospice is at an advanced stage.
However, the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) says the hospice should not be reopened until all recommendations have been implemented. It says this could take months.
Ms Noreen Muldoon, the INO industrial relations officer for the western region, said yesterday that the union had full confidence in the new management structure. She said many of the review's 65 recommendations had already been put in place by the hospice foundation.
The review was commissioned last September, four months after the palliative consultant attached to the hospice, Dr Dympna Waldron, stopped referring terminally ill patients to the unit.
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