Lowry says compromise on care unit is being sought
THE crisis in healthcare in the Mid-West is set to deepen if the HSE presses ahead with its current highly controversial plan to turn the brand new multi-million euro community nursing unit in Nenagh into a stepdown facility to tackle overcrowding in the region's largest hospital in Limerick, Independent TD Michael Lowry has warned.
Mr Lowry, in an interview with this newspaper, said public sector unions representing staff to be relocated at the new Nenagh nursing care facility were set to take industrial action that would make the HSE's plan to repurpose the unit unworkable.
In a bid to resolve the crisis, he said he had been in communication last Monday with the regional CEO for health services Sandra Broderick proposing a possible resolution that would see the new Saint Conlans's Community Nursing Unit at Tyone being used for the dual purpose of catering for the nursing and and residential care needs of elderly people from the locality while also acting as a temporary stepdown facility for patients from University Hospital Limerick (UHL).
Mr Lowry said he had asked Ms Broderick to consider an alternative plan for the upper floor of the new two-storey unit at Tyone. Under this proposal, the upper floor would be used to cater for the 23 patients at the existing Saint Cronan's home at Church Road, a building which the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) had deemed unfit for modern day care needs.
He said that under the proposal, the ground floor of the new 50 bed ensuite facility would be repurposed from a community nursing unit to a stepdown facility for UHL on a temporary basis. Once a new 96-bed block currently under construction at UHL was completed early next year, the entire facility at Tyone would then revert to the purposes for which it was originally intended - for the residential care needs of elderly of people in the locality.
Mr Lowry made his comments following a meeting last Friday with staff of Saint Conlan's in Church Road, who like the 23 patients in that home, were looking forward to moving to the new building - that is until the HSE came up with its current controversial plan to repurpose the entire unit as a stepdown facility for patients from UHL.
IN TALKS
He said he also had talks in recent days with the chairman of the group of unions representing workers, Mark Quinn, who pointed out that the HSE had not consulted with them prior to announcing that it was repurposing the entire new facility at Tyone as a stepdown unit for patients from UHL.
Mr Lowry said he had put it to Ms Broderick that it was not an unreasonable proposal to allow the existing staff members at the current Saint Conlon’s home in Church Road to move to the new facility with the patients for whom they cared. Creating a small number of additional posts in the new facility would ensure that modern standards of community nursing care could operate to HIQA standards on the first floor of the new building until the ground floor was vacated by stepdown patients from UHL. Mr Lowry said Ms Broderick had agreed to examine this proposal.
Mr Lowry said he had also pointed out to Ms Broderick on Monday last that in the interest of fairness and equality, a section of a brand new 60 bed community nursing unit about to be opened on the St Camillus Hospital in Limerick should also be repurposed on a temporary basis as a stepdown facility for UHL.
“If we are going to address this issue then we are going to have to do it in a fair manner and show there is logic and transparency in the system,” he commented.
The Independent TD said the group of unions representing workers caught up in the controversy had reported the HSE to the Workplace Relations Commission for alleged breaches of industrial legislation in relation to it decision to repurpose the unit at Tyone.
NO CO-OPERATION
He said the unions and their members had put the HSE on notice that they will not co-operate with the issues such as the transfer of patients from the Limerick hospital to stepdown care in the unit at Tyone.
“We are heading for a crisis, and and it's going to become very confrontational,” said Mr Lowry, outlining the road he saw ahead if the HSE persist with its controversial plan. “So what I have said to Ms Broderick is that the HSE is going to have to sit down with the unions and agree a compromise.”
Addressing problems being experienced at Nenagh Hospital, Mr Lowry said the opening times of the Local Injury Unit would be expanded from the current Monday-Friday 8am to 6pm to a seven-day round the clock service from the middle of May. He said he had raised with HSE officials the issue of 800 procedures being postponed in the Day Surgery Unit of the hospital due to bed pressures cost by overcrowding in UHL. The officials understood those problems and they had pledged to respond to address the issue, he said.
The overcrowding at UHL would also be tackled by the opening a second 96-bed block on the site, which had now being sanctioned by the government.
He said that the development of a 16-bed modular unit at the site, sanctioned in the last two weeks, would open on the Limerick site in time to cater for the expected winter surge from the autumn of this year.
He said funding of €79 million per annum had been sanctioned to create 717 additional posts at UHL, which had received an exemption from the embargo of recruitment of staff in the health sector.
Mr Lowry said he was alarmed at the number of representations he was receiving from people in about difficulties they had encountered in accessing services at UHL. He had brought these issues to the attention of the former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the current Taoiseach Simon Harris.
He said he had always fought to protect and build on services at Nenagh Hospital, which despite losing its A&E had seen staff grow from 100 to 407 over approximately the past 15 years as part of a €17 million package.