The Eastern Health Board can be justly proud of the way in which it has implemented its policy of transferring long term psychiatric patients to the community. It has done so without the horror stories we hear from other countries. But what it is proposing to do at the Weir Home in Cork Street in Dublin is a blot on a fine record. Psychiatric patients have been living in the Weir Home, a high support hostel, for 15 years. In that time, according to people living in the hostel, residents of Cork Street and psychiatric nurses, - they have made the community their home. They are accepted by their neighbours, many of whom they know personally and they use local shops and other amenities.
Now the EHB plans to turn the home into a methadone and counselling clinic for heroin addicts. Those who have made their home in the elegant building in Cork Street must go. They will go to other EHB homes but that is all that is known so far of where they will be accommodated. No matter where they are moved to, they will be exiled from the community in which they now live. Some patients have told The Irish Times that they believe the effect on their mental health will be detrimental. The EHB claims that the move, to "superior accommodation", was planned before the methadone clinic was mooted. Nevertheless, it came as a surprise to the residents of the home, some of whom told The Irish Times that they first heard of it from local people. The Psychiatric Nurses' Association says those responsible for managing the home were shocked by the news.
Two arguments may be advanced against allowing the residents to remain in the Weir Home. The first is that the building is needed for a methadone clinic. That treatment facilities for people trying to give up heroin are badly needed is indisputable. But how many of us would be willing to leave our homes to make way for a clinic? If the need for a clinic provides a justification for moving people on, could the EHB not vacate part of its splendid headquarters opposite Heuston Station and decentralise some of its staff to, say, Mulhuddart? And is it not the case that, due to road widening plans which never materialised, Cork Street contains more derelict sites than the average Irish town?
The second argument is that the building is old - it used to be the nurses' home for a fever hospital - and too institutional for the residents. But the building is graceful, airy and well lit and each resident has his own room. In the "superior accommodation" to which they are to be moved, they will have to share rooms. Which is the more institutional? It has pleasant grounds to the front, which the EHB has chosen, in spite of requests to the contrary from local people, to hide with ugly corrugated sheeting.
If the Weir Home has defects they can surely be put right. After all, it is going to be refurbished for drug addicts. Why can it not be refurbished instead for the 24 people who live there? The two EHB officials with the clout to do something about this situation, Mr Michael Walsh, programme manager for special hospital care and Mr P.J. Fitzpatrick, the board's newly appointed chief executive, are men with an enviable reputation for administrative ability. By intervening in this situation with their considerable authority and resources they can surely find a way to provide drug treatment facilities in the area without depriving 24 innocent people of their home. Such an intervention would be far more in keeping with the EHB's fine record in this area than the unjust development which is being proposed at the moment.