The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has called on the HSE to call halt to plans to repurpose the newly built community nursing unit in Nenagh, County Tipperary. INMO official, Karen Liston says “The decision by the HSE to repurpose the new nursing home in Nenagh into a step-down facility for University Hospital Limerick without consulting unions and patients who were anxiously waiting to move from St. Conlon’s Nursing Home is extremely disappointing.”
“Nursing staff and the residents of St. Conlon’s Nursing Home deserve to be treated in their state-of-the art facility that was promised to them and that would meet HIQA standards” according to the union. The INMO is also opposed to the idea that the proposed step-down facility, with 50 beds, will be outsourced to a private provider. The INMO says it cannot stand over the further outsourcing of a public health service adding that the residents of St. Conlon’s and the wider Nenagh community were promised a publicly funded and run service for care of older people. It is not acceptable for the HSE to change their minds at the last minute.”
The HSE proposal is to use the 50 bed unit for “about a year” until additional bed capacity currently under construction is delivered in University Hospital Limerick which suffers from chronic overcrowding.
