I raised the ongoing unacceptable closure of Clifden District Hospital at last week’s Health Committee. It was reported that sanction has only been received in the last week to fill these posts, which is not what we had been led to believe. I welcome confirmation that these positions have now being approved by the HSE. I will continue to work with Cllr. Eileen Mannion to have the hospital opened as soon as possible.
I will not say I am none the wiser because that all sounds great, but, as I said yesterday, 56 people are still on trolleys and the district hospital in Clifden has been closed since February because of staffing issues. We cannot recruit. That is a shame. It is not good enough considering the distances from Clifden to Galway city and further to Merlin Park in bad traffic. We have loved ones who had the benefit of Clifden District Hospital for end-of-life or palliative care and respite. They are struggling now and this is having a knock-on impact on University Hospital Galway, UHG. It has been going on since February. We know there is an issue. In fairness, the HSE locally is fully supportive, as are the witnesses and Mr. Gloster previously indicated he is, but the district hospital has been closed since February. Where is the urgency to get it open?
Mr. Tony Canavan
I will respond to that. The district hospital performed an important function locally, for local communities but also, as Senator Kyne has described, served an important function for discharges from the Galway university hospitals. We were challenged with staffing between the two units in Clifden, St. Anne’s, which is a long-term care facility, and the district hospital. A decision was taken, as was described, to concentrate our staff where they were required most, in the long-term care facility. Therefore, we reduced the availability of step-down beds in Clifden. That is not a decision we wanted to take and we are certainly conscious of the implications of it. Recruitment to both those units has been difficult for many years, not only in recent times and that is probably at the heart of our problems. We are aware now though that we are likely to be more successful if we recruit to fill vacant posts in the district hospital. We just received approval to do that in the last week and we are progressing it as quickly as we can with a view to reopening those beds. We do not have a date for reopening them yet, as the approval to proceed with recruitment was only received very recently.
Senator Seán Kyne
Is that from the Department?
Mr. Tony Canavan
Senator Seán Kyne
The Minister of State visited last year and indicated to us that there would be no embargo on recruitment. Now Mr. Canavan says that the sanction for those posts was only received in recent weeks.
Mr. Tony Canavan
To be fair, it is important to look at it in the context of the historical difficulties we have had in recruiting to posts generally in Clifden, in both St. Anne’s and the district hospital. That has been at the heart of the staffing difficulties in that area for some time. More recently, the current moratorium has had an impact. We are likely to be successful if we go to recruitment at this time.
Mr. Damien McCallion
To be clear, the approval process simply came on the back of the fact that there is now more promising information from the campaign to try to attract people. For quite some time – we looked at this before, as the Senator and others have raised it – one of the challenges in the HSE has been identifying where we can attract and recruit people from. As Mr. Canavan said, there have been more positive signs of light on that in the past month. That is the reason for those things being aligned. It was not a prospect previously for recruitment.
Senator Seán Kyne
Is that internationally?
Mr. Damien McCallion
Mr. Canavan might respond to that, but from my understanding it is a combination.
Mr. Tony Canavan
There is absolutely a local issue in respect of Clifden. It is not unique to Clifden. We also experience it in other remote locations, such as Belmullet and Donegal, where we have similar recruitment difficulties at times. It reflects the difficulty in attracting staff to remote locations.
Senator Seán Kyne
It is remote but it is a wonderful part of the world. It is not Outer Mongolia. We hope the witnesses have better success because it is hugely important for the locality. It is constantly being raised by people who unfortunately need the services for themselves and their loved ones. I ask Mr. Canavan to keep the pressure on to ensure that district hospital is open in the coming weeks.
Seán Kyne 