Psychiatric patients in Kildare and west Wicklow, who are affected by a shortage of psychiatric beds, are being placed in nursing homes, the local health board confirmed yesterday.
Sources say that up to 30 psychiatric patients have been placed in nursing homes because of the beds shortage.
"Following psychiatric assessment by a medical team and where it is deemed appropriate, patients are referred to nursinghome care," the South-Western Area Health Board said yesterday.
"The placement of any person in a nursing home would be on the basis that all the appropriate nursing and medical care is available."
Recently the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association said psychiatric patients had had to be accommodated on the floor of the psychiatric unit at Naas General Hospital at times because of a shortage of acute beds.
A new high-support hostel is being built to accommodate 28 patients, and a review of mental-health services in Kildare and west Wicklow is under way. In the meantime patients are sometimes sent to Tallaght General Hospital, St James's Hospital, Dublin, or to private institutions if there is no bed for them in Naas.
Talks are to start next week on the long-running dispute which meant that on some evenings ambulances had to be diverted to St Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin from St Columcille's Hospital, Loughlinstown.
Theatre nurses at St Colum cille's have been in dispute with management for more than three months over what they regard as excessive levels of on-call duty.
They complained that after completing their normal rosters they sometimes had to ensure for days afterwards that they were within 30 minutes of the hospital.
The dispute is currently suspended until the end of this month following an interim agreement including enhanced levels of payment and backdating of allowances.
Talks to bring a permanent end to the dispute are to start next week.
A consultant surgeon in a provincial public hospital has retired because the Medical Defence Union has withdrawn his indemnity cover, according to the Irish Medical News.
Fifty-six claims have been made against the surgeon since 1977, a review of the case by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland found.
The review was requested by the surgeon after the MDU withdrew cover. The RCSI found that while the surgeon must take some responsibility for taking on an onerous workload, the surgical skill level of the consultant was commensurate with that expected of a general surgeon, the Irish Medical News reports.
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