Protest march for Nenagh

The people of Nenagh and surrounding districts are being urged to turn out in their droves next month in support of a protest march to oppose the highly controversial decision to operate the town’s new multi-million euro 50-bed care home as a privately run stepdown facility for patients from the overcrowded Limerick University Hospital (UHL).

Shock waves were caused in the town last month when the HSE announced that the vacant new turnkey community nursing unit, situated adjacent to the hospital at Tyone, was going to cater for patient overflows from UHL instead of being used for  the purpose for which it was originally built, as an urgently needed community nursing unit to serve the locality.

The controversial move has been backed by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, who says the new care home will be repurposed for one year to operate as a temporary stepdown facility to take patient overflows from UHL, pending the opening of one of two new 96-bed units earmarked for the UHL site. After that, the Nenagh facility is to revert to the purpose for which it was originally intended, the minister said.

North Tipperary Fianna Fáil TD Jackie Cahill is supporting the move, saying that because of the high numbers of patients on trolleys at UHL, he had requested the minister to temporarily repurpose the new Nenagh unit as a stepdown facility for UHL.

Deputy Cahill has also said the Nenagh building should begin to operate as a community nursing unit immediately after the first of the two new 96-bed blocks being earmarked for UHL is opened. He expected the latter development to occur early in 2025.

The plan to repurpose the building is being strongly opposed by public service unions representing staff that were looking forward to working in the new nursing unit, as well as by local Labour Party TD Alan Kelly and Independent Nenagh councillor, Seamus Morris.

Next month’s protest march - to be held on Saturday, May 11 - is being coordinated by Anna Treacy, a SIPTU shop steward at Saint Conlon’s care home at Church Road, Nenagh.

Ms Treacy, explaining her reasons for deciding to organise the march, said: “We have got to get moving and raise awareness of this. It’s an atrocity, what they are doing. Even though the unions are negotiating, this seems to be a done deal as far as the HSE is concerned.”

Ms Treacy went on: “Now we want to let them see how the community feels about this decision. We already have a lot of support for the march and local people are really starting to come on board.”

Funding for the new community nursing unit at Tyone was announced by Alan Kelly when he was a minister in the last government.

Its delivery was deemed urgent in order to serve the community nursing care needs in Nenagh and district after the Health Information Quality Authority (HIQA) ruled that the only other publicly run nursing home in  the town - St Conlon’s at Church Road - was no longer fit to serve modern care needs, and would ultimately have to close.

Despite its limitations, HIQA has continued to register the existing home, pending the opening of the new home in Tyone - also to be called St Conlon’s.

There are currently 21 people in care in the existing home at Church Road, who are sleeping in cramped bedrooms and in other conditions HIQA have deemed inadequate.

Ms Treacy said these people, many now in their latter years, had been really looking forward to moving to enjoy modern living and care conditions in the new unit.

‘DEFEAT AND TEARS’

But she said the decision to repurpose the building in Tyone had led to a sense of “defeat and tears” from both residents and staff in the care home at Church Road.

Ms Treacy said there was also a sense of foreboding and anxiety as the June date for HIQA to decide on whether to continue to allow the existing care home to operate was now looming.

Cllr Morris, who has been in correspondence with HIQA over the issue, said there is no guarantee that the authority will extend the registration of the home from June.

The protest March on Saturday, May 11, will commence at 2.30pm at the old St Conlon’s home at Church Road.

It will proceed down Church Road towards the cinema, then turn right down Pearse Street and on to the Market Cross. From there, it will take a left turn and proceed out to Tyone to the new home  beside Nenagh hospital.

Among those leading the protest will be wheelchair bound residents from the old Saint Conlon’s home.

“I’m hoping the whole community will come together on this day of protest,” said Ms Treacy.

She expressed fears that the decision to use the building as a stepdown facility for UHL had put the whole concept for its original purpose in jeopardy.

“People don’t realise that if we are not the first key holders, we may never get the building.”