Plans evolving for €500 million merged hospital

Sunday Business Post - Cork 2008 Supplement - May 25 2008

New healthcare facility would mean people would no longer have to travel from Cork to Dublin for care, writes Dermot Corrigan

Management at Cork’s two voluntary hospitals, Mercy University Hospital (MUH) and South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH), are pressing ahead with plans for a new €500 million merged hospital for Cork city.

SIVUH chief executive Ger O’Callaghan said the two hospitals had met with a number of developers to discuss the possibility of building the new hospital under a public-private partnership, with a site in Cork’s Docklands zone put forward as one possibility.

"Over the last two years the chief executive of the Mercy, Pat Madden, and myself have met with various developers and talks are ongoing," said O'Callaghan. "We are particularly interested in the Docklands development and there are some suggestions there. If tax breaks were available it might go up a lot quicker there."

O'Callaghan said a public-private partnership arrangement was one possibility under consideration.

"We are working on a proposal that might be acceptable to the HSE (Health Service Executive) and would satisfy all parties," he said.

Madden stressed that preserving the voluntary traditions of healthcare provision in Cork was a primary aim in all exploratory discussions.

"This year is the 150th anniversary of the Mercy Hospital in Cork, and there is a proud tradition there of employment and service,” he said. “We want to preserve and protect that ethos, and if there is to be a new hospital we would like it to be based on the voluntary ethos, rather than any other type of model."

The planned 450 bed hospital, first announced last October, will cost €500 million. It will cater for 200,000-plus patients annually, drawn from Cork city, county and the province of Munster.




Madden and O'Callaghan said the venture had the full backing of both hospital's boards, as well as medical staff. They said the new hospital would be a world-class centre of excellence for acute care and be built on core specialties worked by multi disciplinary teams and benchmarked against best international practice.


The new hospital will have fewer beds than the 646 in use in the Mercy and South Infirmary. Madden said this was in line with modern patient care requirements.


"The whole trend is towards shorter times of stay,” he said. “It is now becoming the norm for people to undergo a procedure in the morning and go home that evening. New technology is allowing us to do that."


O’Callaghan said he hoped the capability would exist to treat some patients closer to home in the future.


"There are people coming to acute hospitals that could be looked after in the community," he said. "It would be possible to develop a smaller, learner hospital going forward along with a realignment of services."


He said that facilities at both the Mercy and South Infirmary needed to be upgraded.


"The infrastructure of both hospitals is a problem at the moment, given their ages," he said. "Part of the South Infirmary were built in 1761 and the Mercy Hospital goes back to 1858. While we have state of the art facilities in the hospitals, it is still very difficult to operate in the 21st century in such an environment."


Madden said that the new hospital should mean that people would no longer have to travel from Cork to Dublin to access any type of care.


"The aim would be to bring to the region services which people currently have to travel outside the region to access,” he said. “The south region, including Cork, Kerry, Waterford and Limerick could then be self sufficient in terms of services."


O’Callaghan said full rehabilitation services had been flagged as a valuable addition to the new hospital.


"The area of rehabilitation is a topical area that needs to be developed in the southern region and it may or may not be part of a new development," he said.


Madden and O’Callaghan said they were in regular contact with the HSE regarding the new project.


"We approached the HSE and they have been supportive up till this point," said O'Callaghan. "They have asked Teamwork to look at the region and compile a report. That report is ongoing. But we hope to develop as we feel we should develop, rather than waiting for the report to come out."


O’Callaghan said that some HSE capital funding would be required, regardless of whether the new hospital is run on a voluntary or public / private basis.


"We would need the support of the HSE, given the type of money that would be involved, but we would be confident that this will happen," he said.


Madden said he was confident the project would go through, but declined to give an expected completion date, citing the delays affecting the new National Maternity Hospital project in Dublin.


"You are seeing in Dublin the hoops that people have to go through there," he said.