Donegal Life: Donna Reid exudes the special gift of caring

Donna Reid is from Donegal Town and has been involved in healthcare most of her working career. She is now the Director of Nursing and ‘person in charge’ at the new Ballyshannon Community Hospital.

Donna previously held the same position in the old Sheil Hospital as well, before moving over to the Ballyshannon Community Nursing Unit at the Rock.

“I have also been privileged to have been working on the Ballyshannon Community Hospital itself in terms of the designing," she said.

“This was on the cards since 2014 when we first started talking about it and it is great to be at this stage now where it has been officially opened.

She said that it had taken all of those ten years to go from concept and design, to the funding and finally the construction and recruitment at the new hospital.

“And then in the middle of it all, we had Covid. That was a challenge for everybody in the country and worldwide but what we had to do at that stage was move out of the Sheil and move over the Rock and had to get reregistered and it became the Ballyshannon Community Nursing Unit.”

This essentially amalgamated the Rock and the Sheil.

ABOVE: Donna pictured at the recent opening of the new community hospital in Ballyshannon

“Both buildings over the years had given a fantastic service and the care was excellent but the environment was challenging because the older person needs an environment that can suit their needs and where the staff can deliver care in a safe way.

“So we were very lucky as at the Ballyshannon Community Nursing Unit we had two modular buildings put on site and they served us well for that stage of the project.

“And in February we were able to move our 26 residents back over to the new hospital, which is great. Stage two now is that we open up our 20 bed short stay and before the end of the year, all going well, we will be open in totality.

She emphasised the fact that the new building and hospital was not just something that was put up without the most important people in the whole process and that was the residents and patients themselves.

“They had a great contribution and input. It was very important that we allowed them to be empowered and contribute. So they were really great in choosing various items including the names of each of the nursing units that we have within our new building.

“They also helped pick the colours and have helped with the murals and they have also helped pick the colour of our new coffee shop, which is going to be run by the Bluestack Foundation and they have chosen the name of the Bluestack cafe.

“We are looking forward to that opening up in the coming weeks.”

In conclusion, she added:

“I think that It is really important that we are here to give a service to the older people of south Donegal, North Sligo and Leitrim. We would pride ourselves in older people services and this building was designed to accommodate those people and ageing with a quality of life. I think that we have managed to conquer that here and I know that the staff are as happy as I am feeling, with the residents having a facility where we can actually deliver a really top class service.

“I am so looking forward to being open to the community again.I know it has been difficult over the past few years to get our day hospital open but we are here to give a good service and we are looking forward to working with our allied services, We are right next door to the An Clogher health campus that includes the local Primary Care Centre.”