A specialist care facility which is home to 60 people living with dementia in Dublin has announced that it is ceasing admissions over a lack of funding.
St Joseph’s Shankill informed staff and families of people relying on its services that it had been “left with no option” but to stop accepting new admissions.
The care home, which is Ireland's largest dementia-only care facility, provides two respite beds and an additional 120 daycare places per week as well as caring for the 60 people who live there.
In a statement, a spokesperson for St Joseph’s said they had been “operating at a significant and unsustainable deficit for over seven years”.
Management told the 100 staff and family members that that it had “very positive engagement with the HSE in recent weeks, so much so that it was happy that its daycare services could now be funded into 2020”.
However, discussions with the National Treatment Purchase Fund “failed to deliver an acceptable resolution in respect of the increased funding required to sustain its 60 residential places” which led to the decision to cease admissions.
Chief Executive Emma Balmaine said today that talks with the HSE “had been progressing well up until the end of this week”.
She said: “The HSE had come to the table, they understood our issues and we have an agreed way forward for continuing to fund daycare into 2020.
“Unfortunately the talks with NTPF are not progressing in the same vein.
“We will of course continue to engage but the gap between what’s on offer and what is needed to sustain this high-dependency service into the future, is still far too wide.
She said management would do “everything possible to save St Joseph’s” but that “time is running out” to secure a sufficient budget for next year.
Ms Balmaine said the Board “is firmly of the view” that there is no basis whereby St Joseph’s could currently accept new admissions.
Management for the facility is appealing to supporters and staff to continue the ongoing campaign to secure funding for the centre.
