Limerick: A €5 million centre for troubled teenagers is lying idle in Limerick over the Mid-Western Health Board's failure, to date, to employ adequate staff to operate it.
Last April, the health board secured a High Court ruling to shut the centre down, due to a staffing crisis. Five months on, there is little sign of the centre re-opening. One recruitment campaign has failed already, while a second campaign is ongoing.
The health board is unable to give even a tentative re-opening date. A spokesman said: "It will open as soon as possible, depending on staff recruitment."
The continuing staffing problems prompted consultant psychiatrist Dr Moosajee Bhamjee to call on the health board yesterday to shut the centre and convert it into a child psychiatric unit.
The special care unit was completed in 2002, but remained unoccupied for over a year, as the health board failed to secure the staff to allow the centre to open.
The centre - which has capacity to look after five boys and has annual running costs of €1.8 million - finally opened a year ago, after eight separate recruitment drives in Ireland and overseas that managed to recruit 25 staff, well short of the 38 staff recommended to operate the centre.
During the seven months that the centre was operational, it catered for only three boys in that time. The low occupancy levels were blamed on a low level of referrals by the courts.
Last April, the health board secured the High Court order to close the centre and the two boys in care at the time were relocated to other centres, while a health board spokesman said yesterday that those working at the centre had been re-deployed to other residential centres.
Coovagh House was the third and final special care unit to be established by the State in response to a High Court order in February 2000 compelling the State to provide such care.'
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