Tag Archives: St Joseph’s Hospital Ennis

A PLANNING application for the construction of a new €25 million community hospital in Ennis to replace long stay and short stay beds at St Joseph’s will be lodged in the last week in June, the HSE has confirmed. Responding to Clare Champion queries, the HSE has confirmed it also hopes to host a public consultation event about its plans on June 22. There have been a number of false dawns in relation to this planning application, which was was previously supposed to be lodged last December. If given the green light, the 100-bed community nursing unit will be situated on the grounds of a green field 5.09 acre site adjacent to St Flannan’s College. A design team has completed an outline design phase of the project. The unit will include 88 single and four twin rooms, and four palliative care facilities. The project has already been included for funding in the HSE Capital Programme 2021. An allocation of €1.05 …

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) has confirmed it will challenge efforts by the independent health watchdog HIQA to impose restrictions on new admissions to St Joseph’s Geriatric Hospital in Ennis. HIQA is on a collision course with the HSE over regulatory issues at the hospital, which provides vital public step-down facilities to elderly people. The Clare Champion has learned that admissions will continue at St Joseph’s, pending the outcome of a court appeal being prepared by the HSE. A SIPTU spokesman told The Clare Champion that its members have been providing the best quality care to patients in St Joseph’s. The spokesman explained the regulatory issues do not cover patient care but moreso difficulties in relation to the physical infrastructure, which HIQA have been highlighting for some time. Over the last three years, he said there have been plans to carry out remedial works at St Joseph’s, as well as an overall plan to construct a new facility on the …

SERIOUS infrastructural deficiencies and fire safety risks identified in the latest report examining St Joseph’s Geriatric Hospital, Ennis, have prompted calls for the provision of a new state-of-the-art multi-million euro public elderly care facility on a greenfield site. An unannounced inspection by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) on August 12 and 13 last found adequate precautions were not in place against the risk of fire, or for reviewing and adequately acting on reports of deficits in fire safety precautions. The Mid-West HSE stated this week that concerns in relation to fire safety precautions have been addressed to the inspector’s satisfaction. These include replacement of fire hose reels with fire extinguishers, renaming of corridors and erecting permanent signage. While the HIQA inspector, Mary Moore, said the feedback from relatives and residents about the quality of care was consistently positive, she warned that the design and layout of the centre didn’t promote the “privacy, independence and quality of life of …