Beds at St Christopher's to relocate to facilitate building of new hospice
Palliative Care Support beds in St Christopher's Hospice, Cavan, will be temporarily relocated across Cavan and Monaghan from April 1 to facilitate the development of a new state-of-the-art hospice on the existing site near Loreto Wood in Cavan Town.
€7.5m will be spent on delivering a 16-bed specialist palliative care inpatient hospice and community care facility at the site.
The HSE confirmed the temporary relocation of the palliative care beds this morning. In a statement, it pledges to continue working with the St Christopher’s Hospice Committee to progress the development and acknowledged the ongoing support and engagement with acute services, specialist palliative care services and colleagues in this transition.
"We will continue to liaise and engage with all relevant stakeholders throughout this process," read the statement.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly confirmed €1M funding in late 2021 towards the facility at St Christopher's.
Chair of St Christopher’s Jim Lalor previously said of the vision: “What we’ll have now is a 16-bed, consultant led, fully fledged hospice, with everything that goes with a fully-equipped hospice. It’ll be the same as the hospice in Harold’s Cross and in Raheny.”
It's hoped the centre will be completed and open by the end of 2023.
Palliative care is explicitly recognised under the human right to health and the HSE says it should be provided through person-centred and integrated community and acute health services that pay special attention to the specific needs and preferences of individuals.
In 2001, The Report of the National Advisory Committee on Palliative Care set out a vision for the development and enhancement of palliative care services in Ireland. It made recommendations in relation to the setting up of a comprehensive palliative care service in each former health board area indicating that a specialist inpatient unit should be the core essential element of such a service.
It further recommended that those units should be staffed by medical, nursing, health and social care professionals trained and working exclusively in palliative care. Those units should furthermore be of sufficient size and scope to meet the specialist palliative care needs of the population.
More recently, the HSE National Service Plan 2022, have priority to the progression of the development of a new Specialist Palliative Care Inpatient Unit in Cavan, which will serve the population of Cavan and Monaghan.