Red letter day for Nenagh as new €23 million Community Nursing Home opens

THE new 50-bed  Community Nursing Unit at Tyone, Nenagh, opened to residents last week after the Health Information & Quality Authority issued formal registration of the  facility.

Opening of the purpose-built €23m home on a site  next to Nenagh Hospital was deferred by the HSE last year after it decided that the facility be used as a step-down sub-acute unit to help relieve the significant demand for inpatient beds at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).

That controversial move sparked widespread anger and frustration in the community, sparking a large protest march in Nenagh by hundreds of people who demanded that the unit should have been used as a community nursing home from day one.Nenagh Community Nursing Home was developed by the HSE under the Department of Health’s Community Nursing Unit (CNU) Capital Programme, funded by Government through the National Development Plan.

Residents of St Conlon’s home in Church Road have taken up the first 25 beds in the unit after being transferred to the new facility by members of the Nenagh Branch of the Red Cross last week.

That decades-old home, deemed unfit for purpose by the Health Information & Quality Authority, had served as the only public nursing home in the Nenagh since the 1970s.

The new home at Tyone is much larger and there are now 25 places still to be filled in the facility in the coming weeks and months.

Sandra Broderick, Regional Executive Officer, HSE Mid West, welcomed the opening of the new unit, which comes within days of the new 96-bed inpatient block being opened to patients at UHL.

“I am truly grateful to the residents of St Conlon’s for their patience throughout the period they had to wait to move to their new home,”  she said.

“I want to pay tribute also to the St Conlon’s staff who have continued to provide exceptional care to the residents and who are now transferring to the new CNU.”

Ms Broderick continued: “The decision to temporarily repurpose Nenagh CNU was a practical health measure, but it has had a hugely positive impact. It meant that fewer people experienced care on trolleys, and spent less time on trolleys overall in UHL. It meant that many older patients could be rehabilitated and go home to live independently, without premature admission to a nursing home.”

She added: “Over the past 18 months, as a sub-acute facility serving the region’s acute hospital sector, the unit played a vital role in relieving the pressure on UHL, helping to save almost 20,000 acute bed days.

“We are now focused on fully developing the HSE-led model of service delivery at Nenagh CNU, including long-term residential care services.

“As the St Conlon’s residents move into their new home, we are now focused on the phased opening of the unit’s remaining 25 beds for long-term residential care,” Ms Broderick concluded.

PROUD DAY

Labour Party TD Alan Kelly described the long awaited opening of the new unit as one of the proudest days of his political career.

He took credit for delivering the new facility for the people of Nenagh and surrounds when he was a government minister a decade ago.

“In 2015, I delivered the funding to ensure that this new home was built and then worked with the HSE to get a site for the home beside the hospital. “Following the construction of the home I along with Cllrs Louise Morgan Walsh, Fiona Bonfield and Seamie Morris, and with the support of the people of Nenagh and surrounds campaigned to get it opened after the HSE temporarily reconstituted it as a step down facility.”

WELCOME CAKE

Deputy Kelly visited the new home last week, bringing a welcome cake to the residents and staff.

He said: “It is an incredible facility. It is literally the best in Ireland.

“The residents and staff are so happy there with such modern rooms and facilities, including a hairdressers, family rooms and physiotherapy health rooms.

“There are 43 long stay beds along with five respite and two pallative care beds.”

Deputy Kelly said the new unit was “critically important as so many families are waiting on the facility to provide excellent care for their loved ones.

“I look forward to many more residents going through its doors in the coming weeks.”

Deputy Kelly said there was further good news coming to the health campus in Tyone.

He revealed that there are over 40 beds planned for the hospital, while the planned opening of the new outpatients and primary care facility was scheduled before the end of the year.