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Unit delay for Alzheimer’s patients


VULNERABLE Alzheimer’s patients in Clare are being deprived access to a new purpose-built residential unit in Ennis costing an estimated €225,000 and nearby day-care services, due to chronic staffing shortages.
The claim was levelled by retired psychiatric nurse, Councillor Tom McNamara, who has called on Health Minister Dr James Reilly to allocate funding from the €35 million earmarked for mental health services to facilitate the use of a new 15-bed residential Alzheimer’s unit in St Joseph’s Hospital for local patients.
According to the Alzheimer Society of Ireland, there are 1,300 Alzheimer’s patients in Clare. Councillor McNamara believes some of them should be benefiting from dedicated facilities, while up to 100 families struggling to cope with patients in their own homes could get badly needed day respite if a nearby day-care centre is also opened.
The HSE had 303 elderly people with Alzheimer’s disease on its active treatment list last year and also dealt with another 380 new referrals.
Councillor McNamara blames chronic staffing shortages in the Clare Mental Health Services for the delay in allowing the state-of-the-art facility, formerly Unit 5 in St Joseph’s, to be used for its specific purpose of accommodating Alzheimer’s patients who require residential care. He has also called for the fast-tracking of plans for the development of a day-care Alzheimer’s unit at Gort Glas in front of St Joseph’s, once existing patients are transferred to appropriate facilities, to provide 20 day places for patients, which could benefit up to 100 families on a rota basis.
Instead, Unit 5, which was fully upgraded and commissioned since the last quarter of 2010, has been used by other clients with dementia in the HSE’s older person services, as existing units in St Joseph’s required urgent fire/safety upgrading on a phased basis and it wasn’t possible to maintain residents in these units while works were taking place.
Councillor McNamara, who looked after Alzheimer’s patients before his retirement a few years ago, described it as one of the most difficult conditions to deal with for family members.
“Alzheimer’s patients are vulnerable and some of them can have challenging behaviour. It is a very difficult condition to deal with, as patients don’t know what they are doing. This is yet another example of how badly our health services are being delivered, where money and the need for Government savings is put before the needs of patients,” he said.
He proposed at a HSE West Forum meeting in Galway on Tuesday that staff should be redeployed from the “downgrading” of the Dalganish, Shannon from a high to a medium-support facility and the closure of Gort Glas to the new 13-bed residential unit, with two respite beds, in St Joseph’s Hospital.
He queried the delay in opening the new unit in St Joseph’s at the meeting and hoped once the reorganisation of services is complete, that it would open on June 30 next.
While the HSE would be looking for its fair share of funding from the national €35 million allocation for mental health services, Mid-West area manager, Bernard Gloster explained management has to adhere to guidelines concerning making appointments in the community mental health nursing and adolescent teams.
Mr Gloster stressed the HSE is fully committed to opening the new unit in St Joseph’s once the staff is there to do so and noted it isn’t as simple as redeploying staff from the changes in Dalganish and Gort Glas, as risks and deficits in the existing service, due to the loss of psychiatric nurses under the Government’s Pension Scheme, have to be taken into account.
As part of the Clare Mental Health Service Plan, he stated it is agreed the dementia service currently provided at the Cappahard Lodge site would relocate to Unit 5 in St Joseph’s.
He explained the remedial works in St Joseph’s will be completed by June 30 next and following the final transfer of older persons back to the units in St Joseph’s, Unit 5 would be available to the mental health services.
“It will be a challenge for the Mental Health Services to staff this specific dementia unit from within the reduced staffing resource available to the service, following the retirement of a substantial number of nurses from the service.

 

“However, management of the Clare Mental Health Service will endeavour to reorganise its service delivery to enable this dementia unit to be utilised for dementia patients.
“The Alzheimer Society of Ireland and the HSE are working in partnership to develop the Gort Glas unit as a dementia-specific Day Centre and the Psychiatry of Old Age Outpatient Service. The model of service delivery with ASI will enhance integration of services across care groups, mental health and older persons between hospital and community, statutory and voluntary sectors.
“This project was on the HSE Capital Plan for 2012. Currently, the design and costings are being examined and decisions are pending to ensure the project progresses within the funding resources available to the ASI and the HSE,” he explained.

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