Residents returning to Cork mental health facility despite €1.25m spend on replacement unit
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Residents of a Cork mental health facility vacated due to the Covid-19 pandemic are due to return to it once more despite the HSE having spent €1.25m on a replacement building.
Patients living at Millfield House in Blackpool, a 24-hour nurse-staffed HSE-owned mental health residence, were first moved to the privately-rented Garnish House in Cork City in April 2020.
The residents of Millfield, many of whom had been present there since the centre’s opening in 2002, were moved as there were no single rooms available in their original residence, making social distancing impossible.
The has learned the HSE informed the caretakers of Millfield House in late March of this year that it was “committed” to returning its residents to their former accommodation.
However, this fact contradicts the reasoning given for the HSE buying Glenwood House in Carrigaline, a former B&B, in January 2021 for €750,000.
In the HSE’s capital plan for 2021, Glenwood House — which was purchased from the immediate family of the acting head of Cork/Kerry mental health services — is listed as having been bought in order to replace an “existing unfit-for-purpose HSE-owned dwelling (Millfield House High Support Hostel)”.
In correspondence released under Freedom of Information, HSE estate managers in the region repeatedly stressed in late 2020 that the purchase of Glenwood needed to be expedited as a matter of urgency in order to vacate Garnish House, the rental of which was not “economically sustainable”.
Some €1.1m has been spent on renting and cleaning Garnish House in the two years since it was first occupied by the HSE, a cost of €43,500 a month.
Glenwood House has remained unoccupied, with until very recently no planning permission sought for its retention as a mental health facility, in the 16 months since it was purchased. In addition to the €750,000 purchase cost, a further €500,000 has been spent on “minor works” at the property, the HSE said.
Other internal HSE documents released under FOI show that, in September 2020, Glenwood was listed as being an ideal replacement for the “decommissioned hostel Millfield House”. Millfield was valued at €630,000 in July of 2020.
It is unclear if any remedial renovation works have been carried out at Millfield House since it was vacated in 2020, nor when its reopening will occur or why its sale was abandoned. The HSE had not replied to a request for comment regarding this matter at the time of publication.
The €2.3m spent on Glenwood and Garnish over the past two years contrasts with a €145,000 tender for the refurbishment of the State-owned Owenacurra mental health residential facility in Midleton in 2020, which was never actioned.
Owenacurra has been set for closure since last September due to it being “regrettably no longer fit for purpose”, according to HSE chief Paul Reid, despite the objections of residents — many of whom have been living there for decades — and their families.
Green Party councillor for East Cork Liam Quaide, a prominent advocate for Owenacurra’s retention, said the U-turn on Millfield House posed “major questions” for the HSE.
He said: “The sale of Millfield House was used as the rationale for buying Glenwood — but if the former residents are now returning to Millfield, then why was it necessary to spend more than €1.2m on this unused property on the other side of the city?"
The HSE was contacted for comment.