News

€1m boost for Marymount Hospice

The long-established Cork Charity which runs Saint Luke’s Home for Older People is throwing its weight behind Cork’s new Marymount Hospice with a donation of €1 million

A Charity which has been serving older people and those who are ill in Cork since 1872 is pledging its support to Marymount Hospice. The Board of Directors of Saint Luke’s Home, Mahon, Cork, which runs a residential care facility and a day-care centre, has today (22nd March 2010) announced that it is making a donation of €1 million over the coming five year period towards the capital costs of a Day Care Unit for palliative care at the new Marymount Hospice which is being built at Curraheen, Cork. The two organisations will also share expertise and educational resources for the betterment of care services in the region.

The President of St Luke’s Home, Bishop Paul Colton said that this is part of the Board of Saint Luke’s commitment to helping more people than it is currently able to support. He said:

‘St. Luke’s Home has been at the forefront of care of the older person for many years now. This donation and collaboration with Marymount Hospice will be good for the two organisations and for the people we are trying to help. Both entities are to the fore nationally in what we do. We are very happy, therefore to work with them for the benefit of the people of Cork.’

‘We are committed to expanding our work as a charity’ said Bishop Colton. ‘We have invested a lot in the last five years in improving the facilities at Saint Luke’s Home. We will soon start building work on our new Education Centre which will be fully operational in 2011. In our donation to Marymount and in the programme that lies ahead we are committing ourselves to an ambitious programme which will cost about €6 million. Obviously I want to thank, in advance, all our supporters who will help us to achieve these targets for the benefit of older people, dementia sufferers, and now, those with life-limiting illnesses.”

The contribution to Marymount Hospice’s Day Care Unit of €200k per annum for a five year period has been warmly welcomed by Tony Moloney, Chairman of St. Patrick’s Hospital/Marymount Hospice. He said:

‘St. Patrick’s Hospital and St. Luke’s Home have much in common in that we are both involved in the care of the older person since the 1870’s. Marymount Hospice is the Specialist Palliative Care Centre for Cork City and County and this most generous contribution by St. Luke’s will go a long way towards providing excellent day care services for people of all ages and diagnoses in need of specialist palliative care. The new Hospice is due to open in July 2011, so this support could not have come at a better time.’

St. Luke’s Home:

St. Luke’s is a 120-bed state-of-the-art facility and Day Care Centre for the elderly and, working in conjunction with the HSE, has an occupancy rate of 99%, and a staffing level of approximately 230 providing 24hour care cover, 7 days weekly. Split into four houses of 30bed self-contained areas, one of which is a dedicated Dementia unit, each section has its own nurses’ station, living rooms, catering & dining area etc.,

Milestones:
Since the move to the newly-built nursing home at Mahon in 1994, the following milestones have been achieved:

2000 - Day Care Centre opened. The Centre now facilitates over 20 elderly people per day from the community, offering activities such as arts & craft, bingo, music, games, reading, and an opportunity to compare notes with people from the neighbourhood.
2002 - Sod turns on the fourth 30 bed section, and a new conservatory overlooking the river Lee is opened.
2004 - Fourth 30 bed care section becomes operational
2005 -Construction of new entrance lobby, plus major refurbishment and upgrading on all three original care sections completed.
2007 - Upgrading of dedicated Dementia section completed
2008 -Upgrading of main corridors, dining room, and kitchen/canteen extension completed.

Future Developments:
The Education Centre:
A purpose-built Education Centre is expected to be completed beside St. Luke’s Home in early 2011 following a planning application process, and will cost in the region of €2million. The Centre’s objective is to support the work at St. Luke’s Home in terms of providing in-house continuing professional development training for its staff and volunteers. Most importantly, it will enable the Home to bring the caring spirit of St. Luke’s to even more people. They plan to do this by supporting the training needs of local caring organisations and institutions, churches, charities, the HSE, and voluntary groups, reaching out to the wider community in an effort to improve the lives of Cork’s elderly into the future.

www.stlukeshome.ie

Presentation of Parchment Ceremony – first graduates from the Postgraduate Diploma in Palliative Care

UCC Medical School and St. Patricks Hospital/Marymount Hospice celebrated yesterday with the first graduating class of the Postgraduate Diploma in Palliative Care. A Presentation of Parchments Ceremony was held in the Brookfield Health Sciences, and was attended by the diplomates, their families and colleagues. The 2 year, interdisciplinary programme, which is run in partnership between the Medical School and St. Patrick’s/Marymount, was introduced in 2007, and is designed to increase the knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals in Palliative Care.

Opening remarks were made by Professor David Kerins, Dean of the Medical School, who expressed his great pleasure in officiating at such an historic occasion for the School and the Hospital, and encouraged the new Diplomates to take pride in being the first to graduate from such a unique programme.

Dr. Denis O’Mahony, Co-ordinator of the programme, and Mr. Kevin O’Dwyer, CEO of St. Patrick’s/Marymount also addressed the group. In congratulating the new Diplomates, Mr. O’Dwyer emphasised that education was a core component of Specialist Palliative Care. “To deliver the required level of care, we need highly qualified staff, people who have been trained to the highest standards, people who are aware of the latest national and international developments, people who can introduce new practices and inspire their colleagues, people like you” he said.

In addition to the Diploma parchment, the Diplomates were also presented with a badge. The badge was designed by the graduating cohort themselves, and will be presented to all future graduates of the programme. In the centre of the badge is the sunflower, which symbolises hospice, and four colours in the centre of the sunflower symbolising the Physical, Psychological, Sociological and Spiritual aspects of Palliative Care.

Further information on the programme is available from the Education Centre in St. Patrick’s/Marymount (edcentre@stpatricksmarymount.ie) or the Medical School (medschool@ucc.ie).

Applications for September 2010 entry will be available shortly via: http://www.pac.ie/ucc

New Hospice and Hospital Launch

Mr. Micheál Martin, T.D. Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment will launch the new Hospital and Hospice in the Vertigo Room, County Hall on Friday 1st February 2008 at 2 p.m. The other speakers at the launch will be Mr. Dick Haslam, Chairperson of the Hospital’s Board of Directors, Mr. Pat Healy, Assistant National Director, HSE South (to be confirmed), Mr. Colin McCrea, the Atlantic Philanthropies, and Ms. Regina Donnelly, Chairperson of the Friends of St. Patrick’s. The purpose of the launch is to mark the granting of full planning permission for the project, and to inform the public about the design features, enhanced services, and project programme. It will also provide an opportunity to thank the people of Cork for their tremendous support in the past, and to ask them to continue that support for another three years. Attendance is by invitation only.

New Hospice and Hospital

Plans by St. Patrick’s Hospital (Cork) Ltd. (which incorporates St. Patrick’s Hospital and Marymount Hospice), to relocate all of its services from its current site at Wellington Road, Cork to a green field site at Ballinaspig More, Waterfall Road, Cork are progressing well. A key stage in the project was reached with the appointment in the summer of 2006 of the Design Team for the project. The team is:

Architects: Scott Tallon Walker Architects Ltd. in association with Jane Darbyshire & David Kendall Ltd. (UK specialists in hospice design).
Civil & Structural Engineers: Arup Consulting Engineers.
Mechanical & Electrical Engineers: Varming VMRA Consulting Engineers.
Quantity Surveyors: O’Reilly Hyland Tierney & Associates.

The Design Team, working with the Project Team established by the Hospital to oversee the project and with the User Groups from within the Hospital, have progressed the design to the stage where an application for full planning permission was lodged with Cork County Council on the 18th June 2007. With this landmark event comes a degree of certainty on the design of the building, the cost of the project, and the programme.

Assuming a positive outcome to the planning process, the next stage will be the detailed design of the building. This is expected to take eight months, which will allow the Hospital to proceed with the recruitment of a contractor, with a view to construction commencing on the 1st October 2008. With a construction period of 18 months and a commissioning period of 3 months, the new facilities are expected to become operational during the Summer of 2010.

The full cost of the project is estimated at between €52m and €55m. The Health Service Executive is committed to providing €17.5m, and the Atlantic Philanthropies, a Bermuda based philanthropic organization established by Mr. Chuck Feeney, are contributing a further €10m. The balance of the funding will come from the proceeds of the sale of the Wellington Road property, and local fundraising.

The new project, which will be built by Curraheen Hospital Ltd. a wholly-owned subsidiary of St. Patrick’s Hospital (Cork) Ltd. will include a 44-bed hospice providing a comprehensive specialist palliative care programme, (to include an in-patient unit, a base for community services, a day care unit and an education centre) and a 75-bed hospital for the care of older people providing continuing and respite care services. This facility will replace the existing 24 beds in Marymount Hospice and the 64 beds at St. Patrick’s Hospital.

Launch of International Expert Advisory Group Report on Palliative Care

The Atlantic Philanthropies recently supported St. Patrick’s Hospital in undertaking research to establish that their proposals for the new specialist palliative care inpatient unit were in line with current international best practice. A team of leading international experts in various aspects of palliative care service delivery had input into the project. The report provides recommendations in the areas of:

Structure and Organisation of Palliative Care Services
General Design and Planning Considerations
Education and Research
Benchmarks for Best Practice

The launch of the International Expert Advisory Group Report on Palliative Care took place on March 9th, 2006. The launch, by Professor Eduardo Bruera (Department of Palliative Care & Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center), who was chairman of the Advisory Group, was very well attended by healthcare professionals and administrators.

The report should be read in conjunction with the Report of the National Advisory Committee on Palliative Care, and the Design Guidelines for Specialist Palliative Care Settings. The report is available on this website along with links to the other two publications. It is hoped that the report will inform the future planning, development and operation of specialist palliative care units and services both nationally and internationally.