Beds for residents at mental health facilities in East Cork have gone from around 20 to 6.
That's according to a family member of a resident at the Owenacurra Centre in Midleton who says she isn't sure when the new 12.7 million euro facility - which was due to close before it flooded last October - will be built.
Works have been pushed out on building the 10 bed centre until the end of the year while the HSE has bought three houses in the area for residents.
Speaking to RedFM News, Maureen O'Sullivan whose brother has been moved to one of the new houses says families have been fighting for the centre for 3 years now:
"Midleton and East Cork went from having 19 or 20 beds to having six, and that's only because the families put up a fight, and the respite care has gone, so there's a huge loss, you've got an empty premises as well, that the HSE said couldn't be refurbished because of the damage to the electrics from the floods, but I'm sure there are many people's houses were affected in similar way, and they managed to, you know, to fix it up".
