The national capital is a den of crime; Hospital and nurse not safe Garda patrol needed : Dublin hospital

The national capital is a "den of crime" Hospital and nurse not safe Garda patrol needed- Dublin hospital, Ireland. The Mater Hospital has requested extra Garda patrols because of drug dealing in the emergency department. In its correspondence, Mater gave the dates of five incidents in three weeks in which security officials were forced to intervene for security reasons.

Last month, the Garda announced that more security checks would be carried out under the name 'days of high impact visibility' due to the increased number of incidents in Dublin city. In addition to intelligence and traffic checks, the Gardaí have announced that migrants will be specially screened. Migrant Rights Center Ireland (MRCI) says the announcement of immigration checks will cause concern among migrants in the country.

Migrant Rights Center Ireland (MRCI), an organization of immigrants, came forward demanding clarity on the inspection. The MRCI director says he has written to Justice Minister Helen McCentick and Assistant Garda Commissioner Angela Willis to address the confusion over the process and raise concerns for migrants, but has yet to receive a response.

Apart from this, the hospital has now come into the picture. Dublin's Mater Hospital has raised serious concerns about its Center for Nurse Education, which it says has become a hotbed of drug and alcohol abuse, with at least two burglaries every year. In an email to gardaí in July, Matter said he was deeply concerned about the nurse's education center near the main hospital, which regularly had to move drug users from the outer basement. It said the education center is intended to be a safe learning environment for young students and has locker rooms for female students on its basement floor.

Hospital gardaí have been urged to increase patrols due to open drug dealing in the emergency department, increasing anti-social behavior and a failure to provide proper handovers to patients being dropped off by police.

The hospital said maintenance work had forced it to raise external storage areas and cleaners routinely removed abandoned beds and alcohol cans. This area is accessed via a fire access staircase at the front of the building. Unfortunately, due to fire safety regulations we are unable to chain lock this access point.

A hospital spokesman said: “The hospital's number one priority is the safety of our patients and our staff. Before the onset of Covid-19, there was a visible Garda presence on campus as part of our efforts to ensure a safe and welcoming environment for everyone at the hospital.

“After the last Covid restrictions on hospital visits were lifted, this has now been reinstated. Matters welcomes this important partnership with the Gardai and their support in ensuring a safe environment for those working, visiting and inpatients at the hospital.

"We have made every possible effort to mitigate the problem, but the physical constraints of the building limit our options. The security chief asked if gardaí could regularly patrol the area to help provide "much-needed safety and reassurance" to their young students.

Matters also called for a meeting with gardaí in mid-June about growing concerns about safety, particularly in the accident and emergency department. Details of a third issue raised with gardaí have not been released for security reasons.