Review of €100m Cork elective hospital file ‘being finalised’

Crucial documents needed for the development of a new €100m elective hospital in Cork will be dealt with for sign-off as quickly as possible, Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath has assured.

Mr McGrath made his comment following revelations at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last week that it took eight months for the documents to be transferred from the Department of Health to his department for review and sign-off.

Fine Gael TD for Cork North Central Colm Burke described the delay as “mindblowing”, amid fears that a decision on the new elective hospital will not be made before November at the earliest.

New elective hospitals are planned for Cork, Galway, and Dublin as part of Government efforts to ease significant pressure on existing hospitals.

The documents outlining a preliminary business case for the facilities were first delivered by the HSE to the Department of Health last January.

They have to be submitted to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for consideration and to ensure compliance with the public spending code before the projects can proceed to Cabinet approval stage.

However, the PAC was told last week by the department’s secretary general David Moloney that the documents were received for the department’s consideration only in late September. The reason for the delay is unclear.

Mr McGrath confirmed that the elective hospital file is with his department and will be dealt with efficiently. It is understood that the process could take up to eight weeks.

He said the documents must be reviewed by the department to ensure compliance with the public spending code and in an effort to avoid the mistakes of the past.

“These are major capital projects and it’s important that we do have proper analysis, that the checks and balances are in place,” said Mr McGrath.

Building a new hospital involves a very significant capital outlay and we do have to learn the lessons of mistakes that have been made in the past in relation to other projects to make sure that those mistakes are not repeated.

“But the good news is that my own department is now finalising its consideration of the proposal for the elective hospitals.

“And then it would fall to Minister Donnelly to bring a memorandum to Government and I expect that that will happen very, very shortly.”

The 117-acre State-owned healthcare campus around St Stephen’s Hospital at Sarsfield Court near Glanmire, Cork City, has been identified as the preferred location for the new elective hospital in Cork, to serve the wider Munster region.

The new hospital is expected to have 10 surgical theatres and between 400 and 600 beds to cater for day care and inpatient cases.

It is expected to have a centralised outpatient service facility, to bring together the outpatient service requirements for Cork University Hospital, Mercy University Hospital, and 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.

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