The primacy of accounting over patient care is again being demonstrated in the HSE decision to close the supervised residential unit at Bank House Manorhamilton. 

This was stated by Marian Harkin MEP when she strongly criticised the HSE decision to close a unit which had worked very successfully for the past 18 years.  “I am very aware of just how successfully the patients at Bank House have integrated into the local community over the years and this has been very beneficial for the patients concerned and the community”, she said.

Despite her representations to the Minister for Health, as far back as August last, the buck had merely been passed to the HSE whose total focus at this time was on cost cutting rather than on best practice for the patients concerned, she said.

“The HSE has told me that in any decision about Bank House, the care of patients will get full consideration but I do not see how they can replace the excellent circumstances created over the years at Bank House with any equal alternative elsewhere, neither will there be respite care available locally to the people of the Manorhamilton area”, Marian Harkin MEP said.