‘The Hut’, a Youth and Community Centre in Gurranabraher Cork, have produced an amazing display of colour evoking local Cork landmarks at Mercy University Hospital’s northside Local Injury Unit.
It all began with marking of Autism Awareness Day, on April 2nd, 2021 when Mercy University Hospital launched a specially designed Social Story Booklet – “My visit to the Mercy Local Injury Unit”. to assist patients (parents and guardians) attending the Mercy Local Injury Unit.
Staff Nurse Gerardo Medina created this booklet in response to a need of our patients, both children and adults, who require assistance when using the services.
To further complement the introduction of the booklet, Clinical Nurse Manager (CNM3), Nuala Coughlan, Clinical Nurse Manager (CNM2) Sharon Crowley and MUH Values & Culture Lead Siobhán Kenny came together to seek a way to get the local community involved in bringing some colour to the exterior of the Unit.
A local artist Dave Dummigan from the Men’s Shed project was contacted and together with a group of teenagers from ‘The Hut’ a Youth and Community Centre in Gurranabraher they set about their brief and produced an amazing display of colour evoking local Cork landmarks.
The works also capture several different concepts, Biodiversity, Cork Culture, Autism awareness and the Local Injury Unit itself i.e. it has butterflies which is the 2022 symbol for Autism, the colour blue to promote autism awareness, a hill to incorporate the “On Top Of the Hill” motif associated with the Mercy Local Injury Unit (M-UCC) and even some bees to represent our commitment to our environment. Most of all it brings a smile to people’s faces and will hopefully reduce the stress of an unexpected visit to the Unit.
Mercy University Hospital is delighted to be celebrating a decade of The Mercy Local Injury Unit this year.
Mercy Urgent Care Centre – Local Injury Unit
The Mercy Urgent Care Centre (now Mercy Local Injury Unit) was set up under reconfiguration of the health services back in 2012 as a local injuries unit which involved the transfer of Nursing, Medical and Physiotherapy staff from the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital to set up and open a stand alone Injury Unit under the auspices of Mercy University Hospital.
The vision of Mercy University Hospital is to bring essential services to the Northside of the city and give expression to its mission of being a “hospital without walls”. Thus, the scope of the Mercy Urgent Care Centre was to receive ambulatory patients with recent injuries that the patient /GP did not consider life or limb threatening, to decrease patients with injuries of a non-life/limb threatening condition attending the Emergency Departments pan city. The age cohort is 10 years and over, and the staffing of the unit was based on seeing and treating 9,000-12,000 patients per annum. In 2019 (pre Covid), patient presentations had reached nearly 19,000, double the expectation of the capacity for the unit.
The M-UCC, is one of 11 other Injury Units in the country and sees the highest patient presentations.
The Hut Youth Project– Gurranabraher Road
Mission Statement – To provide a community based response to young peoples’ needs by offering them the opportunity to contribute to and participate in social education, artistic and recreational activities
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