A NEW €25 million acute day unit at Galway's Merlin Park Hospital aims to serve a catchment of one million people, according to the Health Service Executive (HSE) West.
Increasing demand for medical services in a region extending from Donegal to Tipperary north have provided impetus for the development, the HSE West says.
The plans aim to alleviate some of the pressure on Merlin Park's sister institution, University College Hospital, Galway (UCHG).
Merlin Park University Hospital will be developed largely as an "elective, ambulatory care centre" for the delivery of care including pre-assessment, diagnostics, treatment and rehabilitation on an outpatient and planned treatment basis, HSE West says.
Outlining the plans yesterday, Bridget Howley, general manager of Galway University Hospitals, said the majority of day and elective surgery involving one- to five- day hospital care would take place in Merlin Park, unless it was considered of such a complex nature that UCHG was more appropriate.
More than 3,000 people are employed at the two hospitals, which provide 944 beds - excluding continuing care beds in Merlin Park. The HSE West region accounts for almost one-quarter of the population and Galway accounts for one-quarter of this.
Ms Howley said UCHG's recent designation as a national centre of excellence for cancer care, along with the roll-out of BreastCheck, radiotherapy services and the initiation of cardiac surgery, would ensure its continued development as "the major emergency, complex treatment and tertiary referral centre for the entire region".
It would continue to provide core specialist services including acute paediatric, obstetrical, gynaecological and psychiatric service at UCHG.
The new unit will be built alongside the existing hospital building and will include pre-assessment clinics, two dedicated day-service theatre suites, two new orthopaedic suites, endoscopy suites and recovery rooms.
Access would also be easier for people travelling from outside the city, Ms Howley noted. When "transport provision improves", Merlin Park will also be within reach of bus routes and rail links.
In a related development, the HSE has opened a new campus of the National Ambulance Training College in Ballinasloe, Co Galway. Staff from the college in Dublin will lecture and train 32 recruits.
More than 100 advanced paramedics have been trained at the college in the past four years.