Controversial plans to establish a facility for older patients on the site of a purpose-built reception centre for asylum seekers at Balseskin near Dublin Airport have been shelved. Martin Wall reports.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) board has decided not to proceed with the plan to provide extended care beds at the Balseskin site following a report by chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm and meetings with senior officials in the Departments of Health and Justice.
Prof Drumm proposed that the project should not go ahead given the time delay in bringing the facilities on stream and the high cost involved for the provision of low-dependency beds.
The HSE chief was also concerned that the project involved only the provision of low-dependency beds, given the greater need in the health system for high- dependency facilities. He was also unhappy at difficulties experienced in finalising negotiations with the contractor concerned.
However, official minutes of the board meeting reveal that members were also unhappy "regarding the conflict of advice and urgency conveyed in relation to the Balseskin project" at different stages.
"The board decided that it was unable to reach a conclusion on the Balseskin project without a clear recommendation from management and a fuller understanding of how the overall bed requirements and mix was to be satisfied," the minutes state.
The Balseskin project would have provided low-dependency beds for older patients, many of whom would previously have been in acute hospitals.
The HSE has also been engaged in a process to secure similar beds in nursing homes in the private sector. These would also enable patients who no longer need acute care to be transferred from general hospitals.
Such transfers are considered critical to the success of plans to tackle over-crowding in A&E departments.
The minutes state that a key consideration for the board was "the high cost per low-dependency bed at Balseskin vis-a-vis the urgent need for more nursing home beds, both high dependency and low dependency".
A HSE spokeswoman said the proposals to develop the facility for older patients at Balseskin would not now go ahead.
The plan by the Department of Justice to close Balseskin as a centre for asylum seekers, generated much controversy last summer.
At the time public health doctors in the HSE maintained that the centre, which was built only five years ago, had the best medical and therapeutic facilities for asylum seekers in the State and that its closure would represent "a backward step".
The reception centre had a capacity for 380 people and was developed specifically to receive, house and medically screen asylum seekers and their children.
Under the original Department of Justice plan, asylum seekers living at the centre were to be rehoused in Mosney, Co Meath, and other reception centres. However, critics maintained that none of these centres had the same level of medical facilities.
In a statement this week the Department of Justice said: "In July 2006, consideration was being given to transferring the Balseskin Accommodation Centre to the HSE for an alternative use in the health sector. Ultimately the HSE decided not to proceed with the use of the centre for that purpose. The Reception and Integration Agency continues to use the facility as a reception centre incorporating a medical screening service for newly arrived asylum seekers. There are currently 165 people accommodated there."