Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not a member of the committee so I thank you, Chairman, for facilitating me this week. Tipperary is my constituency too, so this is of very significant importance to me. I compliment the people of Carrick and the surrounding areas - not only the public representatives, Councillor Bourke and Councillor Dunne, but all the community - for the good fight they have put up to try to save their community hospital. They have fought this since April 2020, when, as was said, the decision was taken, under the cover and veil of Covid, to close St. Brigid's, despite Councillor Bourke and me getting verbal assurances from the Minister for Health that it would be open post Covid. Unfortunately, that commitment was not delivered on. It was a source of serious disappointment to me and Councillor Bourke that the commitment we got from the Minister for Health was not delivered on. That needs to be said and put on the record.

Ms Mullins and Mr. Torpey made opening statements that were very descriptive of the role St. Brigid's plays in the community of Carrick. No one is saying we want this to be an acute hospital. We fully realise its limitations and the role it played in Carrick-on-Suir. I refer to a comment that was made by Deputy Micheál Martin when he was Taoiseach about another facility in south Tipperary, that we must always deal with the low-hanging fruit first to try to deliver health services. If ever there was low-hanging fruit, to have respite beds and palliative care in St. Brigid's is it.

We have here a copy of the report done in 2018. While it listed some of the limitations of St. Brigid's, at all stages it is unanimous that the care and the healthcare in St. Brigid's were of the highest standard. While the hospital needed modifications to be brought up to modern HIQA standards, and no one is denying that, and while, as Mr. Torpey said, there would probably have been reduced occupancy, we would still have a core community hospital in Carrick.

Unfortunately, palliative care, as Senator Craughwell said, touches us all. When palliative care beds are taken out of a community, the heart is torn out of that community. Clogheen is a significant drive from Carrick. It is to be hoped St. Anthony's in Clonmel will now provide palliative care beds in the new facility being built there. However, palliative care beds are needed in a community. When people are in their last week or days, they want their family around them. When the bed is in your own town, you can run in three, four, five or six times a day and spend five or ten minutes there, whether you are going to work, on your lunch break or whatever. The value of that to a community cannot be overestimated.

Senator Craughwell spoke about bringing in HIQA and the HSE to go through this report. Why was more cognisance not taken of the report when the decision was taken by the HSE to close St. Brigid's? As has been said, there were no serious flaws found with St. Brigid's, only that it needed modernisation and a reduction in the number of beds in some of the rooms. There was a proposal about a greenfield site being needed into the future and the investment in that for the town of Carrick. All of that was ignored and the decision just made for closure.

We have the fundamentals of serious questioning of the HSE as to how the basis for its decision was arrived at when it had a report on its desk that was fulsome in its praise of St. Brigid's, focused on the role it had in the community and what it was delivering for the community of Carrick. In a time when we have a serious shortage of beds, we have a facility that could provide respite beds that would take the pressure off Tipperary University Hospital, University Hospital Waterford or University Hospital Limerick. It does not matter which acute hospital it takes pressure off, because respite beds would take pressure off the trolley crisis we have.

I compliment you, Chairman, on giving the community the opportunity to bring this to the Oireachtas. As a Deputy for Tipperary, I will do all I can to support the witnesses to see if we can get common sense to prevail as regards St. Brigid's.