Planned new elective hospital set to address Mayo waiting lists
The Saolta University Health Care Group and Galway University Hospitals (GUH) have welcome today’s announcement of the progression of an elective hospital for the region.
The development of the elective site at Merlin Park University Hospital (MPUH) will support the separation of scheduled and unscheduled care, reduce cancellations and address lengthy waiting lists for elective procedures.
Separating acute and non-acute services through this purpose built elective facility will also greatly improve efficiency.
Eight operating theatres, seven endoscopy suites and nine minor operation rooms are planned for the Galway centre which is forecast to provide 175,000 additional procedures, treatments and diagnostic appointments per year.
Procedures in the new elective hospital will be high volume, low-to-medium complexity surgeries which can be efficiently planned with dedicated theatres provided.
The Elective Hospital will be focused on providing Day case, GI Endoscopy, minor operations, outpatient treatment and outpatient diagnostics services.
This will enable the Saolta Group to significantly reduce its waiting lists by segregating GUH’s elective capacity.
This development will ensure that all elective care is scheduled and not impacted by emergency or acute patients from across the Saolta region.
Welcoming today’s announcement, Tony Canavan, CEO of the Saolta Group said: “This is incredibly welcome news for our region.
"This development will allow us to provide vital services and earlier access to care for our growing population.
"The greater elective care capacity will also free up capacity in GUH for non-elective and inpatient activity and will lead to better health outcomes for our communities.”
Speaking about the plans announced by the Minister of Health to develop a surgical hub in Galway, Mr. Canavan said all initiatives to address waiting lists in the shorter term would be welcomed.
The elective hospital is one of four core infrastructure needs identified by the Saolta Group for the Galway University Hospitals site, the only Model 4 hospital for the west and corthwest.
These developments are fundamental to address the demands for GUH in providing both secondary care for the Galway catchment population and tertiary care for the entire West / North West region
1.The Emergency Department with Women’s & Children’s Block.
2.Laboratory Replacement facilities Development.
3.Cancer Centre and additional beds (200 beds).
4.Elective Hospital on the Merlin Park site.
Each of the development requirements is grounded on service need and fully aligned to national policy.
The significant interdependencies between the above programmes mean the delivery of all components are needed to address the key infrastructural challenges of the Model 4 Hospital.
“The delivery of the elective hospital on the MPUH site will provide the much needed capacity for effective function of the emergency, elective and cancer programmes for the region. However, addressing the sub-optimal facilities and capacity shortfall in UHG is essential.
“It is only the delivery of all four components as set out above that will address the key infrastructural challenges of the Model 4 Hospital for the patients of the region,” added Mr. Canavan.