28 October 2022
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly today visited services at St Mary’s Health Campus. He was shown the Enhanced Community Care hub for people with chronic diseases, the Mercy Urgent Care Centre and St Mary’s Primary Care Centre.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly chats with Staff Nurse Deborah Casey and Miriam Casey from Cork
Photography by Gerard McCarthy
St Mary’s Health Campus is now home to a wide range of vital and innovative health services, including new services which play a crucial role in keeping people safe, well and healthy at home for as long as possible.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly today (Friday October 28th) visited a new integrated care service at St Mary’s Health Campus, part of the national Enhanced Community Care (ECC) programme.
During his visit to St Mary’s Health campus in Gurranabraher, Cork city, Minister Donnelly visited:
- An ECC hub for people with chronic diseases.
- St Mary’s Primary Care Centre, where he met with staff rolling out a local ECC Community Healthcare Network.
- The Mercy Urgent Care Centre.
The ECC programme is already making substantial progress nationally, reducing pressure on services and dependence on the hospital-centric model of care through enhanced and increased community services.
During his visit to St Mary’s Health Campus, Minister Donnelly met staff and patients at the Chronic Disease Hub which opened in Grove House during the summer. This centre will be one of four such hubs across Cork and 30 across the country and will give community access to specialist services, close to home, for people living with respiratory, cardiac and endocrine chronic disease and/or multi-morbidity. The team at the hub will include consultants, Clinical Nurse specialists, advanced nurse practitioners, physiotherapists and dieticians. Through the hub, patients will be able to access community-based diagnostics such as echocardiogram and pulmonary function testing.
The hub already offers patients with COPD and asthma direct access to a community-based specialist respiratory team, So far, that team has received 310 electronic referrals. Almost three-quarters were for patients awaiting assessment at an acute hospital, and these patients were able to avoid a hospital visit by visiting the hub. Every patient has received a full respiratory Clinical Nurse Specialist assessment including Spirometry which until now was not available in the community. The hub recently started offering pulmonary function testing (PFT) and it is expected that annually over 1500 service users will receive full PFTs at the hub.
The Chronic Disease Hub will continue to expand. In the coming weeks, the first podiatry biomechanical laboratory will come into operation at the hub and by the end of the year, an integrated Cardiology service will be available there.
St Mary’s Health Campus is also home to an Older Person’s hub, in operation since March 2022. This hub is part of a network of 30 similar hubs in development across the country and helps older people to stay safe and well in their own homes for as long as possible, by helping them to avoid hospital admissions entirely or to shorten hospital stays.
The team at the St Mary’s Older Person’s hub offer rapid appointments to older people who are at risk of risk of hospital attendance or admission and who need specialist care to stay at home. They carry out approximately 65 face-face reviews with older people each week, and receive 35/40 new referrals each month. Clients of the hub also have access to city-wide outreach team that supports clients in their own home.
Both the Chronic Diseases Management Hub and the Older Person’s hub are part of the national Enhanced Community Care (ECC) programme. The ECC programme is reducing pressure on services and dependence on the hospital-centric model of care through enhanced and increased community services.
Michael Fitzgerald, Chief Officer of Cork Kerry Community (HSE) said:
“There is a proud tradition of quality healthcare provision at the St Mary’s campus, over many generations. We are proud to offer many new services here that are part of the transformation of our health services and a move to offering care as close to home as possible.
Our staff and the community here are rightly proud of the range of health services provided on the St Mary’s campus. The campus is now home to a range of vital and innovative health services which continue to make a real difference in the lives of people who need these services, playing a crucial role in keeping people safe, well and healthy at home for as long as possible. The entire Enhanced Community Care programme depends on collaboration between many parts of the health service, and the co-operation across all parts of the health system is clearly paying dividends here.”
The Minister also visited other Cork Hospitals
Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD talking to staff nurse Grainne Toomey in South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital Cork on Friday when he visited the hospital and Cork University Hospital to be updated on the running of the hospitals.
Pic. John Allen/Provision
Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD with Prof. Michelle Murphy, Consultant Dermatologist; Mr Colm Taylor, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon; Ms. Ruth Lernihan, Director of Nursing and Ms Helen Donovan CEO South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital on Friday when he visited the hospital and Cork University Hospital to be updated on the running of the hospitals.
Pic. John Allen/Provision
Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD talking to staff nurse Grainne Toomey; Ms. Ruth Lernihan, Director of Nursing and Deirdre Callanane, ENT AMP in South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital Cork on Friday when he visited the hospital and Cork University Hospital to be updated on the running of the hospitals.
Pic. John Allen/Provision
Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD talking to Prof. Michelle Murphy, Consultant Dermatologist and Mr Colm Taylor, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon in South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital Cork on Friday when he visited the hospital and Cork University Hospital to be updated on the running of the hospitals.
Pic. John Allen/Provision
