A parent campaigner says the delayed closure of scandal-hit Muckamore Abbey Hospital in Northern Ireland is a “shambles”.
Glynn Brown says the closure of the facility, in County Antrim, is little more than a poorly planned cost-cutting exercise.
Glynn Brown with son Aaron
Run by the Belfast Health Trust, Muckamore is at the centre of the UK’s largest-ever police probe into the abuse of vulnerable patients. A public inquiry is also underway.
Replacement facility
Retired prison officer Brown is the spokesperson for the families’ group Action for Muckamore.
Brown, from Dundonald, supports the trust’s aim of moving patients into the community. He also thinks health bosses should have had a “good fallback position”.
He said Muckamore’s replacement facility, planned by the trust, has only three beds and this would cause “chaos up the road”.
Delay in closure
Muckamore treated hundreds of patients at its height and was set to close this month.
But Northern Ireland’s Department of Health announced earlier this week that it would delay the closure after failing to find community placements for its remaining patients.
It was reported in February that 24 patients are still at the hospital.
Mike Nesbitt MLA, the Health Minister, said the resettlement process “can be complex”. Rushing it risked the “breakdown of individual community placements”.
Nesbitt said the “direction of travel remains closure”, but setting a further target date would not be “helpful to patients or families”.
Hospital admits new patient
Brown, 63, says Muckamore has admitted a new patient within the past few months while trying to resettle the existing patients.
He said health bosses caved in over the admission under pressure from a family that threatened legal action.
Brown’s son Aaron, 27, who has autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, epilepsy, a learning disability and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (a heart complaint), was held at Muckamore for around 18 months.
Brown said the police are investigating allegations relating to his son’s time there, including one of assault.
Autism Eye approached the Department of Health for comment, but it has not yet responded.
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Published: 17 June 2024
