A psychiatric hospital which has been at the centre of a bitter row for more than two years will stop accepting new patients today and close by next month.
The Health Service Executive has said St Michael’s acute psychiatric unit in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, will finally shut within four weeks but campaigners against the closure have demanded a moratorium on the decision and urged Minister for Health James Reilly to intervene.
The HSE said new acute day hospitals were now operating in Clonmel and Cashel, with three home-based treatment teams.
A refurbished building, Edel Quinn House in Clonmel, will be used as a “crisis/respite house” for acute patients once St Michael’s unit shuts. Twenty-one staff assigned to St Michael’s will be redeployed to Edel Quinn House, the new community nursing unit and the community mental health teams.
The Save Our Acute Hospital Services (SOS) committee, which has been fighting the closure plan since it was first mooted by the HSE in January 2010, responded angrily. They said yesterday that, although a recent High Court challenge to the move was unsuccessful, the issue of an appeal to the Supreme Court had not been dealt with, so the closure was premature.
HSE regional director of operations Pat Healy said the move was the culmination of five years’ work on mental health services across the southeast.