This article is from page 8 of the 2008-01-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
AS planning permission for a new hospital for the mid-west was lodged this week, a Clare County Council- lor was calling for work to begin on Ennis General Hospital, which has al- ready received planning permission.
Fianna Fail Cllr Bill Chambers, who is also one of Clare’s four rep- resentatives on the HSE Forum West, said that in order for work to progress, the long overdue review of acute health services in the mid-west region must be published now.
The Cooraclare man said the so- called Teamwork Report needs to be in the public domain so people can object to parts of it they disagree with and get on with securing acute health services for the people of Clare. It 1s widely believed that the report will suggest the closure of 24 hour A and E at the county’s hospital.
Meanwhile, a private company maintains that it can have a state-of- the-art hospital built on the grounds of the Mid-West Regional Hospital Limerick within 30 months of the start date.
The Beacon Medical Group (BMG) applied for planning permission to construct a co-located hospital on the grounds of the public hospital on Thursday. Plans for the €250 million hospital comprise 175 single rooms
with eight CCU (critical care) beds, six operating theatres, ambulatory surgery and full diagnostics incorpo- rating some €24.7 million worth of new generation equipment.
The hospital will mirror the case- mix of the public hospital, as all spe- cialities catered for in the public hos- pital will also be catered for in the co-located hospital – both medical and surgical, with the exception of national specialities. As recommend- ed by the SARI Report 2005, which made recommendations for infection control in hospitals, all rooms will be single occupancy, each with its own en-suite facility.
BMG is seeking the planning per- mission under the controversial Co- located Private Hospitals Project.
The project, which the Government claimed would free up additional beds for public patients in public hospitals, will see privately operated hospitals for the provision of health care to public and private patients on the grounds of public hospitals.
The new co-located hospitals will allow for 24/7 admission from the public hospital, the public Emergen- cy Department (ED), primary care centres and through GP referrals.
Critics of the policy have claimed, however, that this policy will further increase the divide in our two-tier health system.