New CCTV system installed at hospital’s psychiatric unit

The acute psychiatric unit at University Hospital Galway (UHG) has had a new security camera system installed in recent months.

The revelation emerged at a HSE West Regional Health Forum meeting following queries about the CCTV system at UHG.

Fine Gael Councillor Padraig Conneely tabled questions about how many faults were reported since the beginning of the year and how much money was spent on repairing and upgrading the system in the last 11 months.

He was told there was an annual service and maintenance contract in place in relation to the CCTV system in UHG, which identifies faults and repairs required.

There had been five instances of repairs being carried out to the cameras since the beginning of the year, costing nearly €13,000.

Cllr Conneely said it was his belief there were a lot more than five incidents where the system was not working.

“It has been well publicised by the media issues in relation to patients being out of the psych unit and the CCTV not working,” he remarked.

Chief operating officer for the Saolta Hospital Group, Ann Cosgrove, said the Department of Psychiatry had a new CCTV system installed in recent months and were operating under a separate service contract to the rest of the hospital.

“We have a service contract that carries out an annual report. We’re about to do an audit on site…the plan is to do an audit to ensure no camera is out of order,” she told the meeting.

There have been three high profile cases where vulnerable patients wandered out of the unit, two of them resulted in deaths by suicide. In one, a patient was found in his pyjamas walking along roads late at night in Menlo.

In another, the family of a high risk patient who absconded and took his own life was denied access to crucial CCTV footage. This case is being investigated by the Mental Health Commission.