Holidays for staff at Crooksling day care centre may prompt closures
By Aideen O'Flaherty
THERE are fears that St Brigid’s Day Care Centre in Crooksling may have to close two days a week every time a staff member goes on holidays.
There are also concerns among some service users that the HSE-run nursing home, scheduled to close in 2020 ahead of the services being moved to the Community Nursing Unit in Tymon North, Tallaght, may be facing imminent closure.
The family member of a client who attends Crooksling, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Echo: “It’s looking like they’re going to have to close the day-care every time a staff member goes on holidays.
“The public needs to know about this, they don’t realise it, but at the end of the road when we get older we’ll need these services too.
“When they go to Tymon North, people from Brittas will not be able to get to the day care centre.
“These people don’t like change.”
The building programme for the new community centre in Tymon North began in May.
The HSE had previously reported in a statement that: “This community unit will be built as replacement for St Brigid’s Home Crooksling due to the fact that St Brigid’s does not meet the National Quality Standards for Residential Care Settings for Older People in Ireland.”
Anti-Austerity Alliance councillor Mick Murphy, who is also involved in the Crooksling Action Group, told The Echo: “Over time it seems like the HSE is just scaling down the services, but we’re fighting every step of the way.
“We have big plans for Crooksling.
“[The HSE] is saying it’s due to close in 2020, but by then they’ll need both Crooksling and Tymon North.
“We want Crooksling to become a centre of excellence for elderly care, we want to develop it as a national centre for teaching.
“We want to redevelop it from scratch – as far as we’re concerned we’re treating it as a growing campus.”
Independent Councillor Deirdre O’Donovan, whose grandmother attended St Brigid’s Home before she passed away, described the potential scaling down of services as “worrying” and “disappointing”.
“What’s very frustrating, as someone whose loved one was a patient there, is that the HSE is telling us one thing then doing another.”
Cllr O’Donovan added: “I know myself from when granny was there that there was always a waiting list to get into the day-care centre. It’s such a special place, the patients can look out at deer, rabbits and nature, and yet it’s just outside of Tallaght.”
Comment was requested from the HSE, who did not respond in time for print.
St Brigid’s Home was originally designed in 1935, and then underwent modification in 1959 in order to provide short-term emergency housing for elderly clients.
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