‘Build the hospice now – it's beyond politics, beyond geography’
An impassioned plea is being made this week for all parties to work together to make sure a new hospice for the midlands is built as quickly as possible.
Representatives of North Westmeath Hospice, speaking for their group and their colleagues at Delvin Hospice, are appealing to Offaly Hospice, in particular, to get behind the plan for the new facility to be constructed at the Arden Lane site in Tullamore.
Teresa Collentine and Veronica Larkin said: “To be visionary in this project is so important. We now have an opportunity to build a state-of-the-art hospice on a magnificent site that we can future-proof for the people of our area as our population increases. It’ll be on one level (single-storey) and it will be accessible to all.
“We need to get over the politics and get the show on the road.”
“It’s beyond politics and it’s beyond geography. It’s beyond all that. The community needs the stage three hospice – everything else should be put to one side, and people should start thinking about the facility that we need.”
The facility they were discussing is a stage 3 hospice for which then Health Minister Stephen Donnelly announced €20m funding on December 5, 2023. A number of sites were examined, and the hospice groups in the midlands counties accepted that Tullamore would be the right location.
The proposed facility, which will serve the counties of Offaly, Laois, Westmeath and Longford, will have 20 inpatient beds, ancillary services, and a separate daycare and therapy wing.
The reason local hospice volunteers are concerned is submissions lodged with the planning authority against the Arden Lane location.
Offaly Hospice Foundation has said it “cannot support” the building of a specialist palliative care unit for the midlands at Arden Lane, and has urged Offaly County Council to refuse planning permission for it.
A submission lodged by O’Neill Town Planning on behalf of Offaly Hospice states that while the charity welcomes the commitment by the HSE to finally commission a hospice for the region, it cannot support the location of the facility on “unzoned and remote lands, distant from medical and community facilities”.
The submission argues that another site “within the curtilage of the regional hospital… has been thoroughly tested against all the parameters for same”.
Offaly County Council is due to make a decision by May 29 on the application by the HSE for a regional hospice at Arden Lane.
North Westmeath Hospice representatives say they “stand with Michael Cushen (recently retired consultant in palliative care at the midland regional hospitals in Tullamore and Portlaoise), who was very involved in looking at the new design developing it, with the Laois Offaly Palliative Care Team, and the Palliative Care team here in Mullingar which is led by Dr Pauline Keane and Dr Mark Howard. HSE Estates were also leaders in considering the viability of Arden Lane. For this reason their wise counsel was listened to and hence North Westmeath Hospice representatives support the Arden Lane site.
“We’ve been advised by them and we’ve taken their guidance; we stand with everything Michael Cushen has said, and we cannot understand the position of Offaly Hospice. They knew the Arden Lane site was available and being bought by the Tullamore Lions Club – staunch supporters of hospice in the region, and Hooves for Hospice has been a huge success… why Offaly Hospice would want a hospice on two levels, with no room for expansion, knowing everything that we know about medical service development in the region – that it’s more of such services we need, not tight situations where they can’t develop.”
Teresa, a volunteer since North Westmeath Hospice was established in 1994, concluded by reinforcing the urgency, as the midlands is the only region without a level 3 facility. “It’s time to get this on the move and it up and going,” she said.