Councillors to hold special meeting to prepare case for Mallow hospital
A special meeting is to be held by councillors in North Cork to draw up a battleplan aimed at persuading the government to locate a new elective hospital for the county in Mallow.
At present the Health Service Executive (HSE) is looking at building the hospital at sites in Curraheen, Cork Docklands or at St Stephen's Hospital, Glanmire.
The Kanturk/Mallow Municipal District Council had previously written to Minister for Health Simon Harris on the issue.
At a recent meeting councillors discussed his reply to them, which only noted that he had received their correspondence.
Municipal district chairman, Cllr Bernard Moynihan, declared that Harris "had gone into hiding."
He said anyway there is no point pursuing him because there will soon be a new Minister for Health and they need to prepare a case for Mallow to be the site for the new elective hospital.
"It's urgent now that we be super prepared. There is plenty of space on the grounds of the existing hospital to build a new one," he said.
Cllr Pat Hayes pointed out that Mallow is ideally positioned for such a facility as it is on the crossroads of Munster and has very good road links.
Cllr Gerard Murphy said that getting a new hospital there would serve the needs of the people of North Cork and it is no reflection on staff at Mallow General Hospital "who are all doing a tremendous job".
He said it would make sense to locate the elective hospital there as it would ease the pressure on existing city hospitals.
A number of councillors had said that the issue of the location of the new hospital had come up during the election canvasses.
Many had been told that it is important the hospital is located in North Cork — or if not the best alternative is the St Stephen's Hospital campus as it is close to the M8 (Cork-Dublin motorway) and on the northern side of the city.
Plans are in place for a new northern ring road which would link the M8 to the N22 (Mallow-Limerick road).
The new road will run extremely close to St Stephen's Hospital and thus provide it with very good connectivity to all of North Cork.
"We need to make the strongest case for Mallow that we can now," Cllr Hayes said.
Cllr Moynihan said all the region's councillors need to go away to do their homework in advance of a special meeting which they intend to hold in Annabella House, Mallow on the afternoon of Friday, March 6.
