Glanmire site recommended for new €100m hospital

St Stephen's Hospital, Glanmire, Cork has been selected to be the site for the new €100m elective hospital for Munster. Picture: Dan Linehan

The proposed €100m elective hospital for Munster is to be built on a huge state-owned health campus in Glanmire on the eastern fringes of Cork City.

The 117-acre St Stephen’s Hospital site in Sarsfield Court has been recommended to the Health Minister Stephen Donnelly as the preferred location for the hospital, which will have 10 surgical theatres and could have 400 to 600 beds, to cater for day-care and in-patient cases.

It will have a centralised out-patient service facility, to bring together the outpatient service requirements for Cork University Hospital (CUH), the Mercy University Hospital and the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital, as well as a vast range of advanced diagnostics, to which GPs would have direct access.

It would allow the three existing hospitals to focus on those patients with more complex needs and ensure they have bed capacity for complex surgery cases.

The Glanmire site, which was originally developed as a TB sanatorium in 1954, is home to an acute mental health unit, an Alzheimer’s unit, administration facilities and some Tusla operations.

However, the Irish Examiner has learnt that there are ambitious plans to develop a vast new health campus there once the new hospital is built, including the relocation from CUH of UCC's dental school, and the delivery of medical education, training, research and innovation facilities.

It follows a lengthy site selection process that considered existing healthcare facilities, and other sites in public and private ownership.

In 2019, the South/ South West Hospital Group said it had considered ESB lands in Wilton, close to CUH, a nearby site in Curraheen, and locations in the city’s docklands and along the South Ring Road.

However, the Sarsfield Court site has  emerged as the preferred location given that it is HSE-owned, will not need extensive enabling works, and provides scope for expansion. Its location, a 20-minute drive from CUH, alongside the M8 and the route corridor of the proposed northern ring road were also considered.

Mr Donnelly said he hopes the business case for the facility will be approved quickly.

Fine Gael TD for Cork North Central, Colm Burke, welcomed the news but said delivery should be fast-tracked.

“It would not only deal with the current healthcare challenges in Cork but would also provide and cater for the healthcare challenges in the wider Munster region," he said.

His Fianna Fáil constituency colleague, Padraig O’Sullivan, said: “I just want us to get on now and build the hospital. We need it as soon as possible to start tackling the extensive waiting lists."

Solidarity TD Mick Barry said: “Let's get the announcement made now and get building as soon as possible. And let's have a seven-day-a-week hospital that does more than just day procedures too.” 

Plans for this new elective hospital in Cork have been on the agenda since at least 2008.