Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)

In the five minutes available to me, I would like to deal with the section in the report dealing with mental health services on pages 48 to 53, and specifically, the item on page 49 in respect of the closure of acute inpatient psychiatric facilities in HSE South. This proposes the closure of 61 beds, 29 of which are in St. Michael's acute psychiatric inpatient unit at South Tipperary General Hospital, as the Minister knows well. This matter has been raised for quite some time, and I hope that he can clarify the situation for us.

The proposal to close these beds is a fundamental breach of the document, A Vision for Change. That document, published in 2006, is something everybody in this Chamber completely supports, as do the stakeholders in south Tipperary. That document is a policy for integrated services and holistic services for service users in any particular area. It predominantly operates on a community basis, which we all completely support. It also has a number of other elements such as inpatient acute services and specialist services.

In breach of that policy, the HSE and the Department are going full steam ahead with the closure of the acute beds at St. Michael's unit in South Tipperary General Hospital. There was no prior consultation on this. It was announced overnight and all the stakeholders - service users, health professionals, be they medical or nursing, general practitioners, the general public and professionals in the unit in St. Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny where these beds are to be moved - are all opposed to this development and they have informed the Minister of their opposition. It fundamentally breaches the terms of the document, A Vision for Change and the policy from that document. That policy is crucial in its reference to access for service users to inpatient services and access for carers and family members to those services. It allows for the provision of a 25 bed unit in both Kilkenny and south Tipperary. We are asking that the policy be implemented in south Tipperary.

The HSE and the Minister of State have said on numerous occasions that this closure would not go ahead until the community based services were in place. I can confirm that the executive director, the hospital manager and the director of nursing have informed staff that the unit will close to admissions on 1 March and will close completely on 31 March. The other services are not in place. There is no crisis house. The high support hostel is not ready. The home-based teams do not have allied health professionals. There is no social worker, no psychologist and no occupational therapist. There are no on-call arrangements in place and there are no arrangements for service users to attend accident and emergency departments.

I am making a personal appeal to the Minister this evening. He has met us in south Tipperary on a number of occasions, and I thank him sincerely for that. He knows that we are reasonable people and I ask that he clarifies this issue and instructs the HSE not to go ahead with the closure on 1 March-----

See this speech in context