The first patients began moving today into a new state of the art €35 million Critical Care Unit at the Mid Western Regional Hospital, Dooradoyle, Limerick. The development of the unit is a major step forward in the development of acute hospital services across the Mid West and follows on radical improvements in the provision of emergency care, diagnostics, surgery and medicine.
The acute hospitals in the region ie the Mid Western Regional, Dooradoyle, the Regional Maternity, Ennis Rd, Nenagh Hospital, St John’s Hospital and Croom Orthopaedic Hospital now work as a single hospital system with common governance, management and clinical direction across the sites.
The new CCU, built by Sisks, is one of the largest public capital projects in the state. Construction started in August of 2010 and was completed ahead of time.
Ms Ann Doherty, chief executive of the Mid Western Regional Hospitals Group, said : “This project is a key element of the development of health services in the Midwest. It will provide essential critical and high dependency care for patients and address safety concerns raised by HIQA, and other external reviews, of acute health care in the region.”
Professor Pierce Grace, chief clinical director, commented “The new facility which we are opening on a phased basis is a tremendous boost to the health care infrastructure of the entire Mid-West. It will help ensure that critical and coronary care services of the highest level will be available and easily accessible to all people of the region”.
The development, which links with the existing hospital, consists of a six storey block over two levels of basement car parking. A new 12 bed intensive care unit will be located on the first floor along with supporting accommodation. The second floor will provide a new 14 bed high dependency unit while the third floor will provide a new 16 bed coronary care unit.
The fourth floor accommodates a cardiac non-invasive investigations unit along with two cardiac catherisation laboratories and a nine bed day ward. The ground floor will be available for later development while the fifth floor will be required to accommodate the building services plant. Each level will have a floor area of approximately 1450 sq m.
The facility is state of the art, meeting the highest infection control standards. Strong emphasis has been placed on the segregation of the different users of the building which is very important from an infection control perspective. The development includes 19 full isolation rooms spread over the first, second and third levels.
The cardiology department (CCU, Cath Lab, Echo, Heart Failure and Cardiac Rehab) began moving into the fourth floor of the new building at 8 am today. Consultant cardiologist Dr Terry Hennessy said “We are absolutely delighted with our new location and it is a wonderful advance for our patients offering them much greater comfort and privacy.”
