A new report has accused the management of the Acute Psychiatric Unit in Ennis of failing to ensure the privacy and dignity of residents was appropriately respected.
The Mental Health Commission’s inspection of the unit has found it to be non-compliant in six areas, with three of these receiving a high-risk rating.
The unannounced annual inspection was conducted at the approved centre located on the grounds of Ennis General Hospital from the 25th to the 28th of February this year.
The facility provides in-patient mental health care to people from county of Clare as well as North Tipperary and is registered to accommodate 39 residents.
The inspection team found the APU to be non-compliant in six areas in total which was up from four last year, causing its compliance rating to drop from 88% to 82%.
Inspectors found that residents’ privacy and dignity wasn’t always respected as single bedrooms didn’t have a locking mechanism on the inside, the High Dependency Unit was “run down and bare in appearance”, and bedrooms were “minimally furnished”.
The report states the approved centre environment wasn’t “maintained with due regard to the safety and wellbeing of the residents”.
It was found that the call bell system in the Psychiatry of Old Age Unit wasn’t functioning, there was a smell of smoke in the High Dependency Unit, cigarette butts were visible in various areas, and paintwork was “marked and stained” in the High Observation Unit.
Furthermore, recordkeeping was observed as an area of non-compliance, as the inspection found that not all records were maintained to ensure “security, completeness, accuracy and ease of retrieval”.
Ennis General Hospital has submitted a Corrective and Preventative Action Plan outlining the preventative actions it has taken in each area of non-compliance.