St Dympna’s injury clinic to open just five days per week by end of the year

THE HSE has confirmed plans for an injury clinic at St Dympna’s Hospital in Carlow town to be ready later this year and in operation into 2027. Today, 24 February, it further confirmed that it will spend just under half a million euro on delivering the unit in 2026, as part of the HSE Capital Plan announcement. 

The unit will provide alternative access to care for patients with minor injuries, which will reduce pressure on the emergency department at St Luke’s General Hospital in Kilkenny. With the adjacent x-ray outreach facility remaining in place, the clinic will be equipped to treat broken bones, sprains and strains, minor facial injuries, minor scalds and burns, wounds, bites, cuts, grazes and scalp lacerations (cuts), small abscesses and boils, splinters and fishhooks, objects stuck in eyes, ears or nose and minor head injuries.

Niamh Lacey, hospital manager at St Luke’s, said they expect the unit to initially operate five days a week, Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5pm, due to clinical, nursing and administrative staffing arrangements.

On completion of the ‘significant’ project, “we anticipate faster access to diagnostic and radiography services and improved patient outcomes for people in Carlow and surrounding areas,” said Ms Lacey.

The original plan was for a seven-day-a-week clinic to open in 2025. Minister of state Jennifer Murnane O’Connor called on the government to commit funding for it in September 2023. The project secured funding from the Department of Health in Budget 2024. Minister Murnane O’Connor said the first delay arose from the tender process for external enabling works.

“I wanted it quicker. I am on to the HSE saying we need to move it on. I will keep the pressure on,” said deputy Murnane O’Connor. “We do really need this as a growing population. It has been a priority; it is going to happen.” 

Internal works have been agreed with St Luke’s, which will operate the clinic, and the contract will go out to tender in the coming weeks. The works will repurpose the approximately 265 square metres of St Anne’s Ward and former staff training room on the ground floor of the hospital building and return it to clinical use. Office space will be moved to the former Sacred Heart Hostel and the training room to the Dolmen Centre.

The new unit will include a reception and waiting area, two clinical rooms, a clinical multi-bed room, consultants’ office, support spaces and staff facilities.

Cllr Fergal Browne, who is the vice-chair of HSE Dublin and South East Regional Health Forum, said he was “very unhappy” to hear about the delay. He said he raised the issue at the most recent meeting of the forum. He described the unit as “long overdue” and “so vital”.

“As a school principal and a parent, I see the need for it,” he said.

St Dympna’s Hospital functions as a mental health inpatient facility but ceased taking acute admissions in 2003 and closed as a residential care centre in 2008. The building now contains mental health day services, primary care, environmental health and HSE supplies services.