asked the Minister for Health (a) if he has yet reached a decision on a proposal from the Cork Health Authority to reopen Macroom Hospital, (b) the date this proposal reached his Department, and (c) how many such proposals have reached his Department since the hospital was closed by the Cork Sanatoria Board.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Macroom Hospital.
58.
Mr. O'Malley
It is presumed that the hospital referred to is not the District Hospital, which has been in operation for many years, but the small 20-bed unit adjoining it, which was in use as a tuberculosis hospital until December, 1958, when the Cork Sanatoria Board decided to vacate it and hand it back to the South Cork Board of Public Assistance. The latter then proposed that the hospital should be used to accommodate elderly patients from St. Finbarr's Hospital. The proposal was not favoured by the Department on economic and other grounds and action on it was deferred as a review of the hospital accommodation, generally, in Cork was initiated by the newly established Cork Health Authority. Arising out of this review, the health authority submitted a proposal on the 1st September, 1964, to use the hospital to accommodate severely mentally handicapped children. In the Department's view, a satisfactory service could not be provided in so small a unit. The recommendations of the Commission on Mental Handicap which reported on 30th March last support that view.
The Cork Polio and General AfterCare Association expect to be in a position to provide a 40-bed full-time residential centre for severely mentally handicapped children in one of their institutions in Cork city by September next and the health authority were informed on 10th ultimo that the Macroom project was being considered in the light of that development.