Two Cork hospitals to amalgamate

TWENTY years ago, pensioners on the northside of Cork city offered to contribute 50p a week towards the upkeep of the North Infirmary Hospital in an effort to keep it open.

In the end, no amount of campaigning could save the northside’s only general hospital and it closed in 1987.

The loss of this service was raised at a press conference yesterday where representatives of both the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) and the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH) gathered to announce plans to amalgamate under a new roof.

Socialist Party councillor Mick Barry asked if those who had seen the North

Infirmary close now faced the prospect of losing the nearby Mercy Hospital, if the new MUH/SIVUH replacement moves outside the city limits.

Doubtless, there are those who will share his concerns, because for many, ease of access, particularly in an emergency, to the only other acute hospital in the city — Cork University Hospital (CUH) — is dictated by traffic flows.

What no -one would miss however is the replacement of much of the dilapidated infrastructure of both MUH and SIVUH with a brand new centre-of-excellence. Neither of the existing sites has anything to offer in terms of accessibility or parking and neither currently has an ideal A&E.

Yesterday, Pat Madden, chief executive of MUH, was at pains to stress their commitment to the city centre — but unable to say where the new hospital would be. This is because the amalgamation announcement precedes any funding commitment from the Health Service Executive (HSE) and, as a consequence, any decision on the proposed new hospital’s location.

Those involved are aware of the details of the as yet unpublished HSE Review of Acute Hospital Services in HSE South. A spokesperson for the HSE confirmed the amalgamation proposals are not at odds with the reconfiguration of services proposed in this review. On this basis, those proposing the new hospital are reasonably confident the €500 million funding they will need will be approved, at least in part, by the HSE. If it isn’t, they’re prepared to consider other options, including a public-private partnership, and they are committed to delivering a new hospital within five years. The chair of MUH’s board of governors, Desmond C Murphy, is confident it can be done.

“We are only looking for the capital costs, and generally speaking, the HSE seems more amenable to approving capital costs than revenue costs,” he said.

A number of sites are favoured by those proposing the project. Dr Neil O’Donovan, chair of the medical staff committee at SIVUH and Ger O’Callaghan, chief executive of SIVUH, favour a greenfield site — allowing building work to go ahead without disruption to existing services.

In this context the docklands has been suggested or a site behind Kent Station.

Blarney has not been ruled out, nor has a 40-acre site at St Stephen’s Hospital in Glanmire, nor has the use of 13 acres of land owned by MUH and UCC at the site of Irish Distilleries at the bottom of Sunday’s Well.

Mr Murphy estimates requiring between 25-40 acres for the development, but again, with use of high-rise, the Irish Distilleries site cannot be ruled out.

Representatives of both hospitals attending the press conference — in addition to Dr O’Donovan, Mr O’Callaghan, Mr Madden and Mr Murphy, were former Fianna Fáil junior minister Dan Wallace (vice chair of SIVUH board of directors) and Paul Sweeney, chair of the medical board at MUH — agreed there was a need for ongoing investment in both MUH and SIVUH and that the best option was to consolidate services in a single site hospital.