Tuam Mental Health facility set to close

A COMMUNITY mental health facility in Tuam, described six years ago by a former Minister as a “model for health services”, is marked for closure by the HSE.

It’s been confirmed that plans are underway to relocate the existing 11 residents at Toghermore House into three separate houses in Tuam, which will be operated by the Respond Housing Association.

The 18-bed residential facility at Toghermore has been at risk for a number of years and its closure was averted just days before Christmas in 2012 following a massive local community campaign.

The three, five-bedroom properties are in the process of being purchased to accommodate the move. Tuam area Cllr Donagh Killilea understands that the properties and their refurbishment will cost in the region of €1.4million. He describes the move as a waste of public money and has called the HSE’s management of the campus into question.

The relocation of residents is unlikely to take place before summer, as the three properties require renovation and refurbishment works. However, following clinical assessments the HSE says one resident will be moved to a nursing home over the coming weeks.

Fianna Fail Cllr Killilea says the money spent on buying new properties could have been invested in the Toghermore mental health campus to improve facilities and increase the facility’s capacity.

“If the facility was properly utilized over the last four years there would be no need to close the house.”

He has accused the HSE of under-utilising the facility in order to force its closure.

“The HSE is outsourcing patients so they can walk away from their responsibility to providing long term care,” said Cllr Killilea.

Thousands of euro was spent on the Toghermore Campus within the past decade.

The significant refurbishment and improvement works began in 2008 following poor results in a mental health report on the conditions in which some patients were living.

In 2011 the then Labour Minister Kathleen Lynch visited Tuam to officially open the refurbished and expanded health facilities and described it as a model for health services around the country.

Just days before Christmas in 2012 the HSE said it intended closing the facility on health and safety grounds and that it didn’t meet fire safety requirements.

The HSE did a u-turn on the decision following an outcry by the local community. It’s understood that the necessary fire safety improvements were carried out in 2013-2014.

A Mental Health Service inspection report in 2015 did raise some concerns about the facility and described its operation as “somewhat institutional” as there was a lack of personalised or homely features in the sitting and dining rooms.

At the time of the unannounced inspection, two years ago, the service was in the process of transferring clinical responsibility from the sectors team to a newly appointed rehabilitation team, but nursing staff of the residence expressed confusion regarding the process.

The report stated that the situation regarding which team has clinical responsibility for residents needed to be clarified immediately.

It also stated that there was a good and supportive relationship between staff and residents.

Cllr Killilea intends raising the closure at Tuesday’s meeting of the West Regional Health Forum.