THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) has told the Department of Health that if the controversial new regional hospital proposed for the northeast is not developed on a public-private partnership basis, it could be 2020 before it is built.
The provision of the new hospital, which consultants are understood to have recommended to be located in Navan, formed a crucial part of the HSE’s blueprint for reconfiguring services in the northeast.
However, it has been uncertain for some time as to how the new hospital would be funded. In 2008, the Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said that there was “not a red cent” in the exchequer to pay for it.
Department of Health documents drawn up for its secretary general Michael Scanlan maintain that the development of a new hospital in the northeast originally formed part of the HSE’s capital plan 2009-2013.
“However, in August 2009, the HSE informed the Department that due to financial constraints, funds are not now available to progress it within the lifetime of this capital plan,” the documents state.
The HSE is continuing to work with it and the Department of Finance to progress the issue of funding “and of progressing alternative funding mechanisms such as public-private partnerships,” the documents say.
“The HSE has indicated that if a public private-partnership cannot be progressed then funding provision will have to be identified in the next capital plan with a view to the provision of this facility by 2019/2020.”
The documents also state that no decision has been taken about the location of the new hospital.
