Fight to provide shelter for patients at Mayo hospital goes on

Castlebar councillor and HSE West Forum member Michael Kilcoyne has expressed dismay that the HSE has made no provision to ensure a covered passageway is put in place between the Covid assessment unit at Mayo General Hospital and the main hospital building.

He has been campaigning for such an amenity to be put in place since 2020 and told HSE management he was baffled by the failure to act on the call to provide a roof shelter at the site.

He stated: "We are heading into the second winter where people have had to be wheelchaired, some in their nightclothes, from the Covid assessment centre to the hospital.

"I really would have hoped somebody in the HSE Estates Department would have had this sorted by now. This is really serious.

“Words fail me when I see a person who is sick being wheeled across in a wheelchair with hailstones hopping around them and that is how it is going to be from a month's time.

"It raises questions about the competency of HSE design staff if they can't design something around this - I wonder what is the point of the Estates Department in the HSE at all."

In response, Ann Cosgrove, chief operations officer, HSE West, replied: "They don't' want to put anything in place that would impede on that development.

"A design team is looking at it and we expect an update by the end of October; so they are going to deal with it so that nothing will impede on the work going on in the new Emergency Department unit."

Councillor Kilcoyne: "I'm talking about a temporary structure here."

Ms. Cosgrove: "You are looking at it from a patient perspective, whereas they are looking from a design point of view."

Councillor Kilcoyne: "It is the patient that is important."

Ms. Cosgrove: "Yes, absolutely."

Councillor Kilcoyne: "It's very easy to see nobody in Estates was wheeled across in a shower of hail, it is really wrong that people who are sick, are being treated like this. I ask that we have an update on this issue at the next meeting."

The COO agreed to provide an update at the meeting of the HSE West forum.