A consultant at University Hospital Waterford says it’s unlikely patients will be admitted to the new hospice unit this year.

The South East Palliative Care Centre occupies the first two floors of the new Dunmore Wing at the hospital.

It consists of a floor for Palliative Care Day services as well as 20 inpatient rooms and was handed over to the HSE in April.

Consultant in Palliative Care at UHW Dr Brian Creedon is says the people of Waterford can be proud and reassured that they have a state of the art facility

“It’s taken a long time, as you can see externally the building is completed, and we’re just going through some of the normal finishing procedures at the moment inside which include some minor snagging and equipment.

“As I’m sure people can appreciate for healthcare and hospitals our equipment is a lot more complex than just standard furniture…that will hopefully be in situ for September”.

He says some of the team will be moving in to the building in the autumn, however, Dr Creedon believes it will be some time before they’re taking inpatients:

“The inpatient unit was to open before the year end, it’s now looking very challenging for that to happen in terms of the time it will take to hire new staff. We don’t have an existing unit, so there’s no staff for the unit.

“There’s a significant number of staff, and as people appreciate, they’re going to need particular skills. We’re going to need nurses,  physical therapists occupational therapists, dieticians, social workers, doctors and all the support staff…and it’s looking unlikely we’ll have all the staff in place before year end.”