A meeting is being held next Monday night at the Clonmel Park Hotel at 8.30pm, to raise further awareness of the current threat to hospital services in Clonmel.
The Save our Hospital Action Group holding the meeting will have as its guest speaker Dr Paud O’Regan, Consultant Physician at South Tipp General.
The hospital action group claim that the recent announcement of the closure of mental health services in Clonmel confirms that plans are already in place to remove all acute services from the hospital.
The HSE has announced the closure of St. Michael’s Hospital, with its services to be transferred to St. Luke’s Hospital in Co. Kilkenny.
Senior hospital clinicians and local politicians recently met Taoiseach Brian Cowen to discuss the surprise decision by the HSE to close this 49-bed acute psychiatric unit and Minister of State Martin Mansergh with consultants and local Oireachtas members, had requested a deferral of the decision until submissions could be taken from all those affected by the move.
At the February meeting of South Tipperary County Council recently, a motion called for a letter to be written from the council to the Minister for Health and CEO of the HSE requesting them to reverse the decision to remove all psychiatric services from South Tipperary.
The HSE told hospital management recently it had accepted the findings of the Mental Health Commission that St Michael’s Unit was “not fit for the purpose in caring for mental health patients”.
The Irish Mental Health Coalition (IMHC), previously called for the immediate appointment of a National Director for Mental Health by the HSE to address the absence of accountability for mental health services.
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