Donegal Town Community Hospital to get vital upgrade

The HSE are planning to start refurbishment works at Donegal Town Community Hospital before the end of the year.

The works will be tendered in October and it is hoped that a public works contract can be awarded to enable the refurbishment to commence this year.

Councillor Tom Conaghan raised the matter at this week’s Regional Health Forum West meeting.

Joe Hoare, the Assistant National Director, Capital and Estates West, told the Donegal Town public representative that the plan is for the works to get underway by the end of 2023.

Mgr Dan Carr announces retirement as St Johnston parish priest

The popular cleric, a native of Fanad, has been the parish priest in St Johnston for 35 years and will continue to live in the parish as Pastor Emeritus

Councillor Conaghan said he has visited the facility recently ‘and there is no doubt about it, it needs repair and a lot of work’.

HSE chiefs are to seek an exact start date for the works. 

Councillor Conaghan welcomed the news of the impending work, but told HSE chiefs that he will be keeping the progress under constant monitoring amid concerns among his constituents. 

Speaking to the Donegal Democrat after the meeting, Councillor Conaghan said: “The Director of Nursing Susan Rose and all her team do a fantastic job at the hospital.

“They are going above and beyond to provide a caring, professional service to their patients in a hospital that hasn’t had any significant work done since the 1960s. They are very well thought of in the community, and the very least they deserve is decent facilities. It is long overdue.”

Councillor Conaghan pointed out that a number of services including dental and physiotherapy had moved from the hospital to the new primary care centre. 

He said: “This has left some vacant space in that wing of the hospital. I am asking that this area would be incorporated into the refurbishment plans.”

Earlier this year, an unannounced inspection by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) at Donegal Town Community Hospital raised concerns about several issues at the facility. The hospital was found to be non-compliant in areas of fire safety, premises, infection control, governance and management, and residents’ rights.

The inspection was carried out in March and a report published in July said that the nursing and healthcare provided was ‘of good quality’ but improvements were needed in other areas.

“The provider’s fire safety precautions did not ensure that residents were adequately protected in the event of a fire in the centre,” the report said.

“Examples of this included: some fire doors not having automatic closing devices, fire doors in the laundry not closing properly, fire drill records not being sufficiently detailed, personal emergency evacuation plans of residents not up-to-date, oxygen cylinders stored in corridors, poor fire precautions in the laundry area including a significant build up of lint in the tumble dryer which posed a fire hazard.”

It was noted that the floors of shed toilets in most of the four-bedded rooms were visibly unclean, the laundry room was visibly dirty and there was no functional separation of the clean and dirty phases of the laundering process, which posed a risk of cross contamination, shared moving and handling equipment.

The inspector observed that the staff did not always practise hand hygiene after assisting residents with their care needs.

The hospital, a 29-bed unit, is run by the HSE. It provides palliative care, respite care, convalescence, rehabilitation and continuing care. Accommodation comprises seven single bedrooms (six en suite), one en suite twin bedroom and five multiple-occupancy bedrooms, each accommodating four residents.