FG wants old building at CMH to be upgraded or demolished

The Minister for Health should make an immediate decision on whether the old building at the Central Mental Hospital should be upgraded or abandoned, a Fine Gael TD has said.

Mr Dan Neville, the party's spokesman on mental health, said the recently published Report of the Inspector of Mental Hospitals had severely criticised the condition of the old building at the Dundrum hospital.

"The conditions there are a disgrace and should not be tolerated in any decent society . . . Parts of the building where patients were placed in seclusion were primitive and dehumanising. This is not acceptable in the Celtic Tiger boom," Mr Neville said.

He called for a limit on the use of seclusion which, he said, continued to be used extensively at the hospital.

"The inspector states that this method of dealing with disturbed behaviour needed to be audited and monitored to a much greater degree than is currently done. The inspector also highlights the limited approach to dealing with disturbed behaviour and the absence of non-medical intervention," he said.

The inspector's report found that the sleeping areas in the old building were generally of poor quality, lacked furnishings, had peeling walls and had either limited or no clothes storage space. All of the rooms had "night pots" with the accompanying "slopping out" in the mornings.

The report noted that the Central Mental Hospital was "at a crossroads" as far as the future of the old building was concerned and said there was uncertainty as to whether it was going to be upgraded or abandoned.

As a result, the report said, "staff were feeling discouraged by the uncertainty of the building's future. This in turn had curtailed enthusiasm and had ensured that expenditure on the old building in particular had remained at a minimum."

The report stated there was a recognition within the hospital that upgrading the old building was a formidable task financially, particularly in providing in-room sanitation.

"Nevertheless something needed to be done as a matter or urgency. Parts of the building were undoubtedly very unsatisfactory," the report concluded.

However, a spokesman for the Department of Health, Mr Alex Connolly, said that "before the report was completed, our Department provided £400,000 to the health board for urgent remedial works to be carried out in the Central Mental Hospital and we understand that these are about to be carried out now".

A spokeswoman for the East Coast Area Health Board, Ms Noreen Byrne, confirmed that the allocated money would be spent this year and the refurbishments would begin soon.