Multi-million-euro A&E department opens at MUH
After 19 months of repeated delays and claims of the unit’s “imminent” opening, MUH management and the HSE will today confirm the long-awaited service will finally be available from Monday next, December 1.
Under the terms of the agreement, the facility — which was described as “state of the art” when it was built in early 2007 — will be open on a 24/7 basis.
However, the full medical and paramedical services originally planned will not be available. A spokesperson for MUH explained that any possibility of their future introduction depended entirely on how much money will be made available to the HSE south in the health system’s 2009 Service Plan.
Currently, patients attending MUH’s emergency department are being treated at a unit described in an official national report as being “not fit for purpose” and unacceptable for treating seriously ill people.
However, from Monday, the replacement service will finally be made available to the public — meaning that up to 10,000 patients could be diverted from the nearby Cork University Hospital every year.
Meanwhile, in a far less time-consuming move, MUH has also announced the opening of a new €5.27 million nurse education centre to provide practical training, lecture and study facilities to MUH staff and other healthcare workers.
The new centre — which has three floors and includes lecture rooms with a capacity for 100 people — will be used to educate and train all support personnel who contribute to a patient’s treatment, including those working in the acute hospital sector, continuing care, community care, learning disability and care of the older person.
Confirming the move, MUH Director of Nursing, Mary Dunnion, said:
“Educational programmes need to be service-driven, have equity of access, be flexible, have clinical focus, have standardisation, be quality assured and be sustainable.
“This will involve working in partnership with the Directors of Nursing Midwifery Planning and Development Units, Nursing Management, Practice Development, Hospital Management, Community Care agencies and Higher Education Institutions.”
