Elderly patients being sent home as beds lie empty in Kerry community hospitals, council hears
More than two dozen beds across two new multi-million euro community hospitals in Kerry are lying empty, and have never been filled, while elderly are being sent home or to facilities mile from their home towns, a council meeting has been told.
The €8m, 40-bed Kenmare Community Hospital opened in 2013 after years of political wrangling and campaigning with rival politicians racing to claim credit for the facility.
However, six years later half the beds in Kenmare are still not open and the HSE said a recruitment campaign for nurses has been unsuccessful for the third time.
Cllr Johnny Healy-Rae, who raised the matter by way of motion, said the council must approach the Minister for Health Simon Harris directly.
The €14.5m Dingle Community Hospital was planned for 60 residents. However only 43 beds have been sanctioned since its opening in 2010 and of this number six are now closed.
West Kerry councillor Seamus Cosai Fitzgerald who marched for the hospital in the first place, said he will stage a protest outside if the six beds are not opened.
“The HSE /Cork Community Healthcare said they advertised for nurses but couldn’t get them. Now they are saying there’s a moratorium on health care assistants. I am asking them to lift the moratorium and hire the assistants.”
A 94-year-old woman was sent home because there was no bed for her, he said. A second woman, aged 90, has been told she is to be sent outside the peninsula.
“This is completely unacceptable. The beds are there. They can be opened,” he said.
There are 19 beds open at Kenmare Community Hospital, with the potential to open up to a further 21 in the future.
A spokeswoman for Cork Kerry Community Healthcare blamed the ongoing closures on problems with staff recruitment
“While we planned to open a number of additional beds at the community hospital on a phased basis, we have unfortunately faced challenges in recruiting the extra nurses we need,” she said. .
Increasing capacity at Kenmare Community Hospital remained a priority for them and recruitment was ongoing. .
“The most recent recruitment campaign was last month (September 2019). Every effort has been made to recruit the necessary staff, and we have run three recruitment campaigns in the last year alone. Additional beds cannot open until we recruit the necessary number of staff,” the spokeswoman said.
