Palliative care service covering Tipperary celebrates three year anniversary

The HSE’s South East Palliative Care Centre has, this week, marked its third year in full operation as an inpatient facility.

The Centre was developed as part of the €31.26 million five storey “Dunmore Wing” integrated project, completed on the grounds of University Hospital Waterford in 2019.

The South East Palliative Care Centre occupies the ground and first floor of the Dunmore Wing.

The second, third and fourth floors of the Dunmore Wing feature 72 single, inpatient rooms for UHW.

The Waterford Hospice Movement contributed €6 million to the South East Palliative Care Centre project and the WHM’s offices are based in the Centre.

The South East Palliative Care Centre is the hub for palliative care for south Tipperary, Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, and Wexford, and has built on the existing Consultant led integrated model of care in place across acute hospitals and community healthcare services in that region.

Staff at the South East Palliative Care Centre support Community Specialist Palliative Care Teams across South Tipperary (based in the HSE Community Care Centre, Western Road, Clonmel), Carlow/Kilkenny (based in Aut Even Hospital, Kilkenny), Waterford (based in the Centre) and Wexford (based in Ely Hospital, Wexford).

A small celebration and thank you to staff took place in the South East Palliative Care Centre on Wednesday, October 16 to mark its three years of operation as an inpatient facility.

Barbara Murphy, Chair of the Waterford Hospice Movement, and Liz Malone, Community Intervention Team Manager, Caredoc, were guests at the occasion.

Speaking there, Anna Marie Lanigan, a Head of Service/Primary Care with HSE Dublin and South East said: "Over the last three years, the South East Palliative Care Centre has fulfilled its aim as a specialist inpatient and outpatient centre for the region it serves. In particular, there has been widespread appreciation of how the 20 en-suite rooms in the Oak Ward has offered a dignity to patients and families in difficult times for them.

"Staff in the Centre look forward to continued service in that regard, being conscious too that true to the Sláintecare strategy, the South East Palliative Care Centre operates by way of close co-operation of acute hospital and primary care services and liaison with care groups working in the community."