Construction set to begin on new €16m hospital

WORK on a new €16 million community hospital in An Daingean is expected to start in the coming weeks.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) yesterday confirmed it had signed a contract with land owner Shane O’Connor to lease a five-acre site at Farran, on the outskirts of the town, for the 72-bed hospital.

A day care centre for older people, a mental health day care centre and a new ambulance base for west Kerry will also be built on the site.

The building contract is to be signed shortly and it is expected that the contractor, Brian McCarthy Contractors Ltd, Ennis, will be on site within six weeks.

It is estimated that construction will take approximately 18 months and that the new hospital will be commissioned in early 2009.

Tom Leonard, of the HSE (South), said staff were looking forward to working in a state-of-the-art hospital equipped with all the latest fittings and medical equipment.

The new hospital has been at number one on the regional health service priority list for nine years and delays led to frustration and several public meetings in the area.

Planning permission was granted for the project in 2002 and it will replace a 43-bed hospital which dates to the middle of the 19th century.

A population of about 9,000, of whom 18% are aged over 65, will be served by the hospital.