CF and Parkinson’s patients to get €10.5m facilities

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) is next week to announce details of €10.5 million plans for providing new facilities in the mid-west for cystic fibrosis and Parkinson’s disease patients.

Planning permission was secured last month for a €10.5m seven-storey centre, which includes a dedicated nine-bed unit for cystic fibrosis patients, at Limerick’s Regional Hospital.

The medical centre is being part-funded by around €4m raised by the JP McManus Pro-Am golf classic and, along with the CF unit, the plan also includes a neurological centre/acute stroke inpatient centre and specialist breast and dermatology outpatient units.

Next Monday at the Regional Hospital, the HSE is to host a press briefing on when the new services will be available and how they will be funded.

Labour’s spokeswoman on health, Jan O’Sullivan, said the isolation facilities for the cystic fibrosis patients are “vital and necessary”.

“There has always been a very strong argument in the mid-west to have such facilities for cystic fibrosis patients,” she said.

The regional hospital has only three dedicated CF beds and they “are located on medical wards, without isolation facilities, which presents a very real threat of cross infection”.

Chief executive of Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland, Philip Watt, said the new facilities will be “a strong beacon of hope” for young adult CF sufferers.

Work on the plan is expected to start next July and be completed by December 2012. The JP McManus Pro-am funding is to go towards the breast and dermatology unit. €4.1m is being raised for the CF unit, led by a mid-west-based ‘TLC for CF’ campaign.