Former welfare home reopens for short stay services

The former St Francis Welfare Home on Rathealy Road has recently reopened and begun providing services to the Fermoy area again, writes KatieGlavin.

It is understood that since reopening, the facility accepted its first patient at the start of February.

According to a Cork Kerry Community Healthcare spokesperson, the Fermoy Welfare Home reopened to provide short-stay services to support people being discharged from an acute hospital and to those requiring short term community support, such as respite care.

“Fourteen beds are available and we are scaling up occupancy of these beds based on planned admissions from the community and facilitating early discharge from the acute hospitals, based on need,” the spokesperson said.

During the Covid19 pandemic, St Francis Welfare Home was repurposed to provide transitional care to clients in the acute sector who were transitioning to a home care setting.

The facility closed on a temporary basis from July 2 last year due to the unavailability of Medical Officer cover. Prior to its closure, a spokesperson confirmed that the occupancy level was low and that the facility’s future use was ‘under review’. Since then, repeated calls have been made to see the facility reopened to provide services such as respite care to the greater Fermoy area.