Text of HSE letter on future of community hospitals

The HSE has written to Minister Joe Mc Hugh about the future of the community hospitals in Lifford, Stranorlar and Ramelton, with the text indicating that long stay beds will be removed from the three community hospitals to a new unit to be built in Letterkenny.
The letter says ” services such as rehabilitation, respite, step up, step down facilities will be needed, all with the view of maintaining older people in their own homes and communities for as long as possible.
It is in this context and in the planning over the coming years that the use and purpose of the current buildings across the three current centres can be considered in order to ensure that an appropriate service is provided for the older people living in their own community in Donegal”.
This tallies with Minister Mc Hugh’s statement this week that the three hospitals would not close, but would serve their communities in a “significantly different way”.
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