New £14m hospital to open in March
February 1992
Wexford’s new £14 million General Hospital is finally scheduled to open in early March, more than fifteen years after the need for upgraded medical facilities was first identified.
The South Eastern Health Board confirmed this week that the state-of-the-art hospital which took more than three years to build and equip will start operating on March 3 next.
The fight for improved hospital facilities for Wexford began in the mid 1970s when the dilapidated workhouse building which the new structure is set to replace became inadequate for modern use.
An uphill struggle to secure Department of Health funds followed and ten years elapsed before financial approval finally came.
The long campaign will come to an end on Tuesday March 3, when staff will move lock, stock and barrel into the shiny new facility which took several months to equip.
Incorporated in the multi-million pound development are new operating theatres, surgical wards, and accident/outpatients’ department, X-ray department, kitchen facilities and a new staff dining room.
Additional purpose-built departments which were not available in the old hospital include a new five-bed intensive care unit, a new sterilising department, endes copy unit and physiotherapy department as well as a medical records section.
Commissioning Officer and acting Project Manager, Mrs Mary Buck, who has overseen the installation of equipment in the new hospital said the facilities on offer to both patients and staff would be of a very high standard.
One facility which will be absent when Wexford’s long-awaited General Hospital opens is a paediatric unit and the delay has been greeted with strong disappointment by the Wexford Paediatric Action Group.
Nicky Rossiter, spokesman for the group which has campaigned vigorously for a paediatric service for Wexford, expressed dissatisfaction at the prospect of a further wait.
The group had hoped that the establishment of the service would coincide with the opening of the new building, he said. A paediatrician was already in place, but children in need of hospital treatment still had to travel to Ardkeen in Waterford.
Mrs Buck was unable to provide a date for the opening of the paediatric unit, but pointed out that it was a separate project that would be incorporated into the new maternity wing.