Staff dismissed or resigned after residents were mistreated at Dublin mental health hospital

A number of staff were dismissed or resigned following an investigation into the alleged mistreatment of residents at a south Dublin mental health hospital, the Mental Health Commission (MHC) has said. The MHC inspected conditions at Bloomfield Hospital in Rathfarnham after reporting by The Irish Times revealed that an internal investigation found that some residents had been left soiled for an “unacceptable period”, “slapped” on the leg, cursed at or threatened with an injection to improve co-operation with staff.The commission, an independent statutory body that regulates in-patient mental health services, found there had been delays in reporting the incidents and implementing measures to reduce certain risks to patients. Set up by the Quakers in Ireland, Bloomfield Hospital, a registered charity, cares for people with mental health issues and disorders including Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia and schizophrenia.READ MOREThe commission carried out two unannounced inspections at the hospital – one across five days last December and January, and a one-day inspection on March 31st. Two reports detailing those inspections were published on Monday.Three critical-risk areas of noncompliance were found regarding maintenance of records, staffing and risk-management procedures.On July 14th, 2025, a healthcare assistant (HCA) made a complaint to the senior nurse manager on night duty, alleging poor standards of care to patients, most of which centred around incontinence. The HCA provided details of 12 alleged incidents.“These incidents were not recorded by the approved centre on their incident recording system at the time when they were reported,” the MHC report said.“There were delays noted by senior management in the processing and recording of these incidents and in control measures being implemented.”Senior management accepted that the 12 alleged incidents were “credible, and further that there was a strong likelihood of the incidents having happened”, the MHC said.The report also noted that a “decision was made to manage the reported incidents by moving them into two other internal processes: Safeguarding and Trust in Care”. By doing this, the report said, “these incidents were managed outside of the normal incident management framework and had not been returned to the incident management framework at the time of the focused inspection”.Staff identified by the reporter “underwent disciplinary processes which resulted in staff being dismissed, staff resigning, staff receiving final written warnings, staff receiving letters of concern and some staff being cleared of any Trust in Care breaches”, the report noted.Senior management also commissioned an independent investigation by an external auditor, which began in August 2025, and its findings were “presented and accepted by the board of directors in Bloomfield”. The MHC said, upon inspection, incidents “were not recorded and risk-rated in a standardised format”, there were “delays in reporting of incidents”, and “clinical risks were not identified, assessed, treated, reported and monitored”.The second inspection, carried out in March, found that risk-management procedures at the hospital were still non-compliant to a “critical” degree.“The approved centre was non-compliant with this regulation because the registered proprietor had not ensured that multidisciplinary teams were involved in the development, implementation and review of all individual risk management processes, as a clinical decision was made and implemented by non-clinical staff,” the report said.The Health Service Executive said earlier this month it had “enhanced” its support and oversight of Bloomfield in the wake of the revelations.In a statement on Monday, commission chief executive John Farrelly said the centre “remains subject to enhanced regulatory supervision by the MHC on foot of the findings of both focused reports, while the Health Service Executive, as the principal funder of the service, continues to provide support and oversight to the centre’s new senior management team”. Bloomfield Hospital and the HSE have been contacted for comment. Senior management at the hospital last year said “various changes” were made to ensure any alleged misconduct did not continue.“The hospital apologises for this distress that has been caused to some patients and their families and reassures them that the management has never, and will not, tolerate any misconduct amongst its staff,” a statement said.The hospital voluntarily closed to admissions last December.