Councillors send motion to Health Minister urging the reopening of acute psychiatric inpatient beds in Tipperary

Two councillors clashed at Clonmel Borough District’s monthly meeting over the Government’s failure to restore acute in-patient psychiatric beds to Tipperary University Hospital.
Workers & Unemployment Action Group’s Cllr Pat English and Fianna Fáil’s Cllr Siobhán Ambrose locked horns during a debate on Cllr English’s motion calling on the council to request Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to recognise the “urgent need” to return acute psychiatric beds to the Clonmel hospital.
Cllr English said the council must put pressure on the Health Minister and Minister of State for Mental Health Services Mary Butler to reopen these beds now that the building that formerly housed St Michael’s Acute Psychiatric Unit at the hospital is being refurbished to accommodate 33 extra general hospital beds.
He accused Minister Butler from county Waterford of only being interested in keeping services in her own area.
He said it was “simply not good enough” and “deplorable” to have (acute psychiatric) patients from south Tipperary going to St Luke’s Hospital Kilkenny for acute inpatient care because there were no beds for them in their own county since the closure of St Michael’s Unit.
He complained that the HSE promised proper psychiatric services would be provided in the community but that didn’t happen.
Minister Donnelly and Minister Butler’s Fianna Fáil party colleague Cllr Ambrose responded that she wouldn’t like the message going out that nothing was being done about mental health services in south Tipperary as this wasn’t the case.
She pointed to the Jigsaw youth mental health support service being rolled out in the county, including Clonmel, and the development of the upgraded 10-bed Glenville Crisis House in Clonmel that is under construction.
Cllr Ambrose said she also didn’t want the message to go out that it was an option that St Michael’s Unit was going to reopen again as an in-patient psychiatric unit.
This premises was being turned into a step down unit of 33 general hospital beds for Tipp UH and this decision was not going to be overturned. Cllr English responded that the previous Minister of State for Mental Health, Jim Daly, acknowledged the closure of St Michael’s Unit was a mistake and gave a commitment to reopen acute psychiatric beds in south Tipperary.
“He acknowledged 20 acute (psychiatric) beds were missing from the system in the South East and the recommendation from the minister was that 10 of those beds would be put into south Tipperary,” he argued.
Mayor of Clonmel, Cllr Michael Murphy, meanwhile, spoke in support of Cllr English’s motion. He pointed out that many south Tipperary families with loved ones suffering from mental health problems didn’t have the wherewithal to visit them in the acute psychiatric unit in Kilkenny if they were fortunate enough to get them a bed there. This was why it was most important for acute psychiatric hospital beds to be provided in Clonmel.
Cllr English’s motion is to be sent to the Minister for Health.