Never used €2.5m health unit may be demolished
A €2.5 million state-of-the-art ‘high dependency’ unit for acute mental health patients at University Hospital Galway (UHG) has been left idle since it was built six years ago, the Galway City Tribune can reveal.
It now looks as though the unit, which was completed in 2007, may never be used because of staffing issues, and could even be demolished to make way for a newer facility for cancer patients within the next two years.
The six bed facility, along with the existing Psychiatric Unit next door, has been earmarked for demolition when a brand new 50-bed unit opens on the site of an existing car park in the UHG grounds. Planning permission for the new facility was granted by Galway City Council in April.
“This high dependency unit, which was built to the highest possible specifications, has never been opened because of staffing issues,” said Noel Giblin of the Psychiatric Nurses’ Association (PNA) yesterday. “It was never staffed, because the ban on public sector recruitment came in around the time it was completed.”
Mr Giblin said the new unit was ideally located to complement the existing Psychiatric Unit next door, but there were issues with retirements, sick leave, and staffing in 2007 which prevented it from becoming operational.
“It had total observation for patients with high dependency. You could stand anywhere in the nurses’ station and see every bedroom in the unit. It was specifically built for people who were too challenging for the normal psychiatric unit at the hospital. The idea of having the unit so close was that you could just walk someone down the hallway to this custom-built facility with a calm environment,” he said.
Members of the PNA were recently informed at a Strategy Development Meeting at the hospital that both the new and existing units would be demolished to make way for a new Radiation Oncology Centre which would link up with the main hospital building at UHG.
“When the new 50-bed facility is built, this unit will be knocked down,” said Mr Giblin. “The hospital management want to build the new Cancer Services Unit up to the same height as the main hospital building. There seems to be no planning across the region. Instead, the HSA seem to be going around throwing up buildings with no plan.”
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.