MOVE FOR PRIVATE FACILITY ADJACENT TO LOUTH HOSPITAL
December 2004
A new multi-million euro private wing to Louth county hospital could be welcoming its first patients by September, 2006, it emerges.
Sources confirm that the North Eastern Health Board is due to announce proposals to develop acute hospital services at the Dubllin Road facility.
The board is to seek expressions of interest from private health care providers in respect of a site adjacent to the hospital which was purchased by the NEHB last year.
It reached an agreement to acquire the six-acre site at a cost of €380,000 per acre last December.
The announcement will be seen as a major boost to the county hospital and health services in the north-east as such a facility would cater for patients from a 50-mile radius, including Northern Ireland.
The board will be looking at interested parties to extend the range of services provided at the Louth where specialities such as renal dialysis, urology and E.N.T. are not currently provided on site.
One key consideration in assessing any expression of interest will be the access arrangements for public patients to the private health care and facilities and services.
With the closing date for submissions just two months away, on 28 February, 2005, it is the expert view that a new private centre could be open to patients as early as September, 2006.
It is believed that one party has already approached the NEHB, while a private consortium which has already announced plans to provide a private hospital at Ballymascanlon may well do so.
The news is a further boost to Louth county hospital where €750,000 has been invested in new medical equipment recently.
A planning application has also been lodged with Dundalk town council for temporary accommodation for two modular operating theatres.
The health board sees these developments as crucial to its plans to develop acute services at the hospital. These include medical and surgical in-patient wards, acute psychiatric and palliative day care services, renal dialysis, out-patients, accident and emergency, radiology, pathology, physical medicine and support services.
Cllr Declan Breathnach, the last chairman of the NEHB, welcomes the possibilty of a private hospital.
‘Since the demise of political representation on the NEHB I have, together with Cllr Peter Savage, focused our efforts on encourging the existing board executive, together with various private consortia, to look at providing Public Private Partnership arrangements on the site.’
According to Cllr Breathnach, up to 100 people would be employed during construction of the private hospital.
On its completion, there would be job opportunities for highly-skilled medical and nursing staff, which he believes would complement the DkIT school of nursing.
He sees ‘ huge possibilities for the new Health Service Executive to look to the Public Private Partnership at Dundalk to provide an acute medical unit which would help look at major blockages in A&E’.