Health centre to offer top facilities ‘on a localised basis’

BUSINESSMEN the McEvaddy brothers say their multimillion-euro private primary care facility in Co Kildare will save locals the inconvenience of having to travel to Dublin for specialist medical services.

When asked if the Naas centre would accept medical card patients, a spokesman said the Vista Primary Care centre will be a private centre but “will also cater for non-private customers”.

The 32,000sq ft facility will only be open to daycare patients and be developed 200m from Naas General Hospital. It should be open to patients by July 2008.

Vista director Ulick McEvaddy said yesterday: “We will develop a best in class, modern, customer-focused facility which will employ the latest in medical services and technologies.

“One of the key benefits of this facility is that it will save many people in the region the inconvenience of having to travel to Dublin through the provision of world-class facilities on a more localised basis.”

Dr Eamonn Shanahan of the Irish College of General Practitioners yesterday said the centre is along the lines of “the US concept of primary care” where even obstetricians can be located in a primary care setting.

He said GPs should enter such centres with “their eyes wide open” as corporate primary care centres in the Australia had been a “disaster” for doctors, who felt disenfranchised when working for a for-profit business.

The facility will provide GP, sports medicine, female and male health screening, diabetes care, obesity clinics, fertility services, laser eye surgery and dentistry. A full service pharmacy will also be on site.