The Minister for Health has approved in principle a £120 million development plan for Galway's University College Hospital (UCGH), which will provide cancer and cardiac treatment in the west.
The cardiac surgery and radiotherapy services will be provided for the first time in the region under the second phase of the development plan which Mr Cowen confirmed yesterday in Galway. The days of piecemeal solutions to the regional hospitals' needs were now over, the Minister promised, when he identified the development as a cornerstone in the Government's commitment to addressing regional imbalances in delivery of health services.
Some £19 million of the £120 million has already been spent in the first phase of the UCGH extension. Additional ward accommodation and X-ray rooms, three new operating theatres and the upgrading of the pressurised accident and emergency department have been provided for under this initial phase.
The more ambitious second phase, costing £43 million, will involve a coronary care unit and cardiac surgery ward, a radiotherapy department for cancer treatment, a burns unit and additional intensive-care unit facilities.
Later phases, costing an estimated £60 million, outlined in the plan include a geriatric day-care centre, psychiatry, a patients' hostel, an education centre and an ambulatory day-care facility.
Mr Cowen said he had instructed his Department to liaise with the Western Health Board on meeting the staffing requirements for the new cardiac surgery unit. Under the National Cancer Strategy, UCGH will also be one of three supra-regional centres for radiotherapy.
Mr Cowen said he hoped to see an end to the current situation where cancer patients from western counties had to undertake arduous journeys to Dublin.
The Minister of State for Health, Mr Frank Fahey, said he was delighted that two of the major health needs of the region would be met by the development. Not all governments had recognised the inequity of concentrating critical health services in Dublin, he said.
"I am doubtful that any other measure in the lifetime of this Government will have as beneficial a long-term effect for the people of the west of Ireland," he said.
The design team for the project includes Dublin architects Patterson, Keeffe, Devane, and Galway consulting engineers H.G.L. O'Connor, while VMRA Associates will provide engineering services. The Western Health Board's chief executive officer, Dr Sheelah Ryan, said the developments would place the board in a much stronger position to make a meaningful impact on the health and social well-being of the region.
Paying tribute to the hospital staff, Dr Ryan said they had been forced to work under very difficult conditions in recent times.
The development is the second major health announcement in the west this week. A respite home for sufferers of Alzheimer's disease is to be built in the Galway-Mayo border town of Ballindine at a cost of £260,000, with grant-aid of £192,000 from the Department of Health.
It will provide care for 10 patients at a time, promising a break for 500 families caring for sufferers of Alzheimer's each year. The unit will be run by the Western Alzheimer's Foundation, which is currently using rented accommodation for five patients in Claremorris.
