A charity that has been providing palliative care for terminally ill patients throughout Cork city and county is hoping to open a new €52 million project by the year 2010 after lodging a planning application with Cork County Council.
Curraheen Hospital Ltd is a subsidiary of St Patrick's Hospital Ltd where, since 1870, the Sisters of Charity have provided care for terminally ill patients at its Marymount Hospice on Wellington Road, on the northside of Cork city.
Now Curraheen Hospital Ltd has applied to Cork County Council for planning permission for a new 15,000 square metre hospital and hospice at Ballinaspig More, Waterfall Road near the start of the Ballincollig by-pass on the south western fringe of Cork city.
The new building, which will extend to two and three storeys high, will include 75 hospital beds, 44 hospice beds, rehabilitation and therapy services, as well as other facilities, while the project also envisages providing some 200 car parking spaces on a 13-acre site.
Funding for the €52 million project comes from a variety of sources including a €10 million donation from Atlantic Philanthropies, the charity set up by Irish American billionaire, Charles Feeney, which has sought to assist projects for older people in Ireland.
The Government is also assisting with grant aid totalling €16 million, with the balance of the cost being raised by fund-raising and by the sale of the Cork charity's highly valuable five-acre site on Wellington Road, which incorporates St Patrick's Hospital and Marymount Hospice.
St Patrick's Hospital Ltd chief executive officer Kevin O'Dwyer explained that the new facility will meet the recently issued Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) recommendation that 60 per cent of patients be accommodated in single rooms and 40 per cent in multi-bed rooms.
"We're increasing the number of beds in the hospital from 64 to 75 and some 51 of these will be single bed rooms, while we're increasing the number of hospice beds from 24 to 44 and all of these will be single bed rooms, so we're in line with the HIQA recommendation," he said.
Mr O'Dwyer said that, depending on the obtaining of planning permission, it is hoped that construction work on the new hospital/hospice facility would start next summer, with construction taking an estimated 18 months.
"This would then be followed by a further six-month fitting-out period.
"Assuming that everything goes according to plan in terms of planning permission and so on, we would hope to commission the hospital in the summer of 2010 and while we will be very sad to leave Wellington Road after almost 140 years, we are very excited at the prospect of moving to a new facility," Mr O'Dwyer added.
