Accommodation: Expanded facilities for cancer patients will be announced tomorrow at St Luke's Hospital in Dublin.
The new Oakland Lodge accommodation will provide a "home away from home" for patients, according to the hospital.
The building of the new 19-room extension cost €1.2 million with funds coming from the Friends of St Luke's Hospital. The Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children Mary Harney will attend the official opening tomorrow.
The lodge will provide a total of 49 rooms, all en-suite, and 28 of them can accommodate a partner or a family member.
Oakland Lodge at St Luke's Hospital is a five-day facility. There are a number of therapies available to patients including aromatherapy, an activity centre, movement to music, bingo sessions and a mini pitch-and-putt golf course.
"Patients having treatments such as radiation oncology need to come every day to the hospital over five, six or seven weeks," said St Luke's chief executive, Lorcan Birthistle.
"Some of them have to travel many hours every day. In the lodge we create an intimate environment with access to medical support but also with independent living. All patients have their own intimacy, their own room even their own key."
The environment the lodge provides is designed to have a positive effect on each patient, according to the hospital. It offers information, education, support and specialist care in relation to radiation oncology, symptom control and treatment side effects.
The facilities within the lodge ensure that each patient is treated according to his or her needs, the hospital says.
Criteria for patient admissions are assessed under the "Karnovsky status scale", Mr Birthistle said.
"To decide which patient can stay in the lodge, first of all we do it by geographical location. For example, if a patient is from Dublin, it would not be necessary for him to stay here.
"But also it is important that people who stay in the lodge feel relatively well, be self-sufficient and able to complete their everyday activities. Nevertheless, in the lodge there is 24 hours of nursing presence," said Mr Birthistle.
Oakland Lodge was opened in 1996 with 20 rooms, and 10 more rooms were added in 2000. The new extension means the lodge this year expects to provide accommodation to more than 700 patients, 250 more than last year.
This new opening was made possible with funds from the Friends of St Luke's Hospital, which, for the past 23 years, has provided a national platform of fundraising to support St Luke's in the provision of patient services.