Councillors request Health Minister to restore diabetes services to Carrick-on-Suir

A letter from Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District's councillors is being dispatched to the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill calling for a review of the decision to remove multidisciplinary diabetes clinics from Carrick-on-Suir Primary Care Centre.

Carrick-on-Suir MD councillors resolved to step up their lobbying to restore the diabetes service at their monthly meeting in Carrick Town Hall last week after receiving news that multidisciplinary diabetes clinics are moving permanently to Clonmel.

This follows on from a letter calling for the restoration of these clinics led by a specialist doctor that Carrick MD councillors sent to the HSE following their September meeting. 

READ ALSO: Councillors call on HSE to restore diabetes clinics to Carrick-on-Suir Primary Care Centre

Cllr Kieran Bourke, who first highlighted the loss of the service, informed his fellow councillors at last Thursday’s meeting that the HSE was permanently moving diabetic services to the newly refurbished Tipperary South Chronic Disease Community Specialist Services in Clonmel. The facility is projected to be fully operational by December.

He outlined that Independent TD Mattie McGrath received this news from the HSE’s Acting Head of Primary Care Services for South Tipperary Paul Goff in response to a Parliamentary Question he tabled to the Minister for Health on the loss of the multidisciplinary clinics from Carrick Primary Care Service.

Mr Goff confirmed to Deputy McGrath the diabetic service was no longer operating from Carrick Primary Care Service “due to limited availability of clinical spaces at that location”.

And as an “interim measure” a decision was made to operate selected multidisciplinary clinics from Our Lady’s Hospital in Cashel and St Vincent’s Health Centre in Tipperary.

Monthly diabetes clinical nurse specialist clinics for “highly vulnerable” patients continue to currently be provided at Carrick Primary Care Centre.

Cllr Bourke asked the district’s other councillors to support his proposal to write to the Minister asking that the removal of the multidisciplinary diabetes clinics be reconsidered.

He pointed out that the loss of this service impacted people with diabetes from a 20 miles radius of Carrick and not just those living in Carrick town.

Fellow Carrick-on-Suir Cllr David Dunne supported the proposal and reminded councillors that when St Brigid’s District Hospital closed the HSE promised there would be a diabetes service based in the former hospital building and primary care centre next door.

He said for a long time there were not enough health services in Carrick Primary Care Service. While that has now changed, he knew there was still adequate space in the centre for these clinics and they needed to be reinstated.

READ NEXT: TD accuses HSE of breaking promises over diabetes services in Carrick-on-Suir