Last day for Mount Carmel hospital after 65 years

Most of the 300 staff at Dublin’s Mount Carmel hospital are completing their last shift today, with all elective work scheduled to finish at 3 pm.

Workers have been invited to attend a final Mass in the hospital chapel at 5 pm. Up to 100 staff will be kept in place for the next fortnight as all business is fully wound-down.

Liquidators were appointed to the hospital by the High Court last Friday. It had been opened in 1949 by the Little Company of Mary Sisters and was bought by developer Gerry Conlan in 2006 for €50 million.

Mr Conlan's financial difficulties brought loans associated with Mount Carmel into the remit of the National Asset Management Agency in 2010, which endeavoured to support the institution until confidence returned to the property and private healthcare markets.

In January last year Nama appointed Goodbody Stockbrokers to sell Mount Carmel and it was put on the market in April. Despite a reasonable level of interest however, no buyer was secured. Last weekend the High Court appointed RSM Farrell Grant Sparks weras Joint Provisional Liquidators.

Though known primarily for its private maternity services, Mount Carmel also provided paediatric surgical care, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, endoscopy, urology, ENT, plastic surgery, dental care, dermatology, vascular and pain management services.

Over the past week long-stay patients have been transferred to other hospitals while maternity patients have been redirected mainly to the Coombe maternity hospital’s private facilities, though other maternity hospitals have said they will be available to accommodate pregnant women who had been due to give birth at Mount Carmel.

Approxiamately 1,200 babies per year were born at Mount Carmel.