Replacement building for St Vincent's starts to take shape

The new 50-bed Community Nursing Unit (CNU) in Clonbrusk, Athlone, which will replace the long-established St Vincent's Care Centre in the town, is beginning to take shape.

Anyone passing the site, adjacent to the Primary Care Centre and just off the bypass, will see a very substantial precast structure being erected over the last few weeks, showing the footprint of the long-awaited new development.

The awarding of a contract for the Athlone project, and for six other Community Nursing Units in other parts of the country, under a public-private partnership arrangement, was announced by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly and Minister for Mental Health and Older Persons, Mary Butler, in early December last year, before work began in the early part of 2023.

Equisisk, a Dublin-based company, has been appointed to design, build, finance and maintain each of the new Community Nursing Units for a 25-year period before handing back the facilities to the HSE. Under the terms of the contract, annual payments of €24 million will be paid by the HSE to the company for each of the 25 years.

While a HSE spokesperson said the Athlone project is still at the early stages of construction, the precast structure is being erected at present by a small number of construction staff. Once that is complete, the next steps will be to make the building weather tight for example the installation of roof and windows and the numbers working on-site is expected to rise as more trades move in to start the fit-out of the building.

The HSE has pencilled in quarter four of 2024 for the completion of construction on-site in Clonbrusk.

Each of the seven new Community Nursing Units being developed nationally are to be made up of "25-bed households, including single and twin bedrooms en-suite," Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said at the contract signing last December.

"Each household includes a dayroom and sunroom, dining area, break out spaces, activity spaces, quiet rooms, external spaces and staff and nursing areas.

"In addition, shared areas and therapy spaces are included with facilities including a family overnight stay room, clinical treatment rooms, physiotherapy and occupational therapy rooms and hairdressers’ rooms," the Minister explained at the time.

There are also plans to incorporate a day centre as part of the new Community Nursing Unit in Athlone.

The new facility, spanning some 5,000 square metres, will be state-of-the-art replacement for outdated facilities in St Vincent's which have been the subject of criticism from HIQA for many years because of the lack of en-suite facilities, single rooms and the need for greater communal and personal space. The CNU will have a mix of long and short-term beds. A highly controversial aspect of the Community Nursing Unit project has been the HSE's plan to close the South Westmeath Hospice, on the grounds of St Vincent's Care Centre, and to relocate the service to Clonbrusk in what the hospice committee fears would not be a like-for-like facility.

The HSE has reiterated on a number of occasions that "four Level 2 Palliative Care support beds" would be included as part of the CNU project.

Asked by the Westmeath Independent what the current situation is in relation to the hospice, a HSE spokesperson said this week that “discussions are ongoing and at an advanced stage”.

South Westmeath Hospice said recently that it “remains engaged in a mediation process with the HSE” about the future of the four-bed hospice unit.