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Why is this state-of-the-art facility lying idle? Eve Kelliher hears how mental health services staff are disappointed that the €8m Deer Lodge in Killarney is not yet open
Cormac Williams, Mary Delaney, Pat Murphy, Ruth Adams and Finbarr Murphy outside Deer Lodge.
RESPONSE FROM HEALTH SERVICE EXECUTIVE "THE Deer Lodge facility in Killarney is a purpose built 40-bed facility for the mental health services. This development is a very welcomed addition to the Kerry Mental Health Services and will allow for the improved provision of services and therapeutic intervention in rehabilitative and later life mental health. "The construction phase of Deer Lodge, Killarney is complete and we are in the process of taking the necessary steps in opening this facility. "The Kerry Mental Health Services has set up a Commissioning Group with the responsibility of overseeing the many crucial processes which are required to progress the opening
of Deer Lodge. This group meets regularly to discuss issues pertaining to Deer Lodge. The membership of the group includes staff from Kerry Mental Health Services, residents of the O’Connor Unit and family members/carers. "A meeting was organised with clients from the O’Connor Unit and their families for a walkthrough of Deer Lodge in early 2016. Feedback from those who attended was very positive and all suggestions/comments were considered by the Commissioning Group. "The Kerry Mental Health Services have started the process of registration of Deer Lodge as an approved facility with the Mental Health Commission."
THEY were extremely impressed when a team of psyWHEN a team of psychiatric nurses received a tour of Deer Lodge on St Margaret’s Road in Killarney they were highly impressed. Deer Lodge is a purpose-built 40-bed mental health services facility, which will provide therapeutic intervention in rehabilitative, and later-life mental health. The €8m building was finished in the third quarter of 2015 but is not due to open until the first quarter of 2017, noted Cormac Williams of the Kerry Psychiatric Nurses’ Association. “It is a superb building, with 40 ensuite bedrooms – we are talking the in terms of the Gresham Hotel league if we were to compare it with a hotel,” Mr Williams told Killarney Advertiser. His colleague Mary Delaney added: “It’s a shame this beautiful building is lying idle. We had a tour of it when it was finished and it is so impressive, with a hairdressing salon, state-of-the-art bathrooms and kitchens.” Referring to recent calls from the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI), in conjunction with Nursing Homes Ireland, encouraging “inactive” nurses to return to work to meet the growing demands for nurses, Mr Williams said the nursing shortage is a result of “short-sighted” policies which led to a reduction in student nurse placements available as well as a mass exodus of newly qualified nurses from Ireland in search of better pay and working conditions. And while the HSE awaits increased numbers of nurses to come onstream, such facilities as Deer Lodge and a €2m, four-bed high-observation/challenging behaviour unit at the Acute Admission Unit, at University Hospital Kerry, in Tralee, are “lying idle”, added Mr Williams. “If we are ever to open these new but still idle facilities and expand community services in the county, we will need to substantially increase mental health nurse recruitment in Kerry,” he said. “Given the current chronic shortages of mental health nurses, in the short-term the only way to recruit nurses is to ask retired and inactive mental health nurses to return to work with the HSE in Kerry on a part-time basis for a number of years.”
Couple return to hotel 41 years after honeymoon AS HONEYMOONERS, Mary and Garvin Godfrey first visited The Dromhall Hotel in July 1975. The couple, from Sion Mills, Co Tyrone, did not return to Killarney again until 1990 and at that time could not exactly pinpoint the hotel they had stayed in. Recently they came across the original bill for The Dromhall Hotel and with the hotel name established, all that waited was a return visit to Killarney and The Dromhall Hotel which was to happen this August – some 41 years later, “A friend of the couple, Sheila Burns, contacted the hotel to advise us of the return of the Godfreys to Killarney and to The Dromhall Hotel 41 years later,” said Susan Randles of The Dromhall. The couple and their friends were once again greeted by Kay Randles who invited them to lunch in Kayne’s Bistro at The Dromhall where memories and stories were told. Mary Godfrey left the original bill with the Randles family. “With acquaintances re-established we know it will not be nearly so long before the Godfreys return to Killarney and The Dromhall Hotel again,” said Susan. Mary and Garvin Godfrey with Kay Randles.
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Killarney Advertiser 16.09.16