Plans 'imminent' for new UHG Emergency Department
Galway City Tribune - A planning application for a new Emergency Department at University Hospital Galway (UHG) will be ready to lodge in about three months.
Saolta University Healthcare Group has confirmed that the ED will go ahead at the Newcastle site – and it will not be impacted by an ongoing ‘appraisal’ of the future plans for UHG and Merlin Park sites.
Saolta said that the design of the planned new ED building wasn’t yet finished but should be ready in eight to twelve weeks. It will require ministerial approval to proceed to planning.
The new six-storey building will replace the existing ED, which has been declared “not fit for purpose” by successive taoisigh and health ministers.
Ann Cosgrove, Saolta Chief Operating Officer, confirmed to City Councillor Pádraig Conneely (FG) that the new ED would go ahead at the Newcastle site, regardless of the outcome of an appraisal of both Merlin Park and UHG that was currently ongoing. That appraisal arises following calls for a new public hospital to be built at Merlin Park.
Saolta had been slow to lodge a planning application while that review was ongoing, but Ms Cosgrove confirmed to Cllr Conneely that that appraisal would recommend a new ED at UHG. It will be published soon, she said.
Cllr Conneely pressed Ms Cosgrove on why a planning application hadn’t yet been lodged. “That ED is not fit for purpose. It’s an awful place to go. We’ve known this for a long time, it’s not up to scratch,” he said.
Ms Cosgrove said that the hospital was granted funding for the design stage in 2017. The design of the first two floors of the building – for the ED – are completed, but more details about the four floors above it - for a new maternity unit - must be finalised before the planning application is ready to lodge. Subject to planning, the ED would take between two and four years to complete, she said.
Figures released to Councillor Niall McNelis (Lab) confirmed that last year there were more than 65,000 attendances at the Emergency Department.
May was the busiest month – when there were 5,950 attendances; and February, a shorter month, was the only month in 2018 when there were fewer than 5,000 attendances.
Ms Cosgrove told Cllr McNelis that the exact cost of the planned new ED won’t be known until the design is complete.