Private Hospital on the Our Lady's Site

Carazy

Great to see it hopefully going to some use. It was a complete shame that Our Lady's was sold in the first place. Such a great site with potential.

Clare hospital would create 600 jobs

GORDON DEEGAN in Ennis

Wed, Apr 11, 2012

PLANS FOR a private €60 million hospital that would create 600 jobs are to be lodged with Ennis Town Council in coming weeks.

This follows an An Bord Pleanála ruling that the application does not qualify as a strategic infrastructure development (SID) and the project will be adjudicated upon by local planners.

A private firm, Duesbury Ltd, is planning the 97-bed hospital within the 19th-century protected structure that housed the former Our Lady’s Psychiatric Hospital on the northern outskirts of Ennis.

A spokesman for Duesbury said the hospital would create 100 construction jobs and 600 jobs when operational.

He confirmed that the hospital would comprise of a “full care hospital providing all medical services and ancillary accommodation to include 97 full inpatient beds, also including 12 consultant suites with 30 first-strategy recovery cubicles and office accommodation”.

Hotelier Allen Flynn, builder Martin Fitzgibbon and Paul Talty purchased the site in October 2005 from Clare County Council for €5.2 million.
The three subsequently secured planning permission for a four-star hotel on the site.

However, the three have never advanced the hotel plan and through Duesbury are now seeking planning permission for the hospital.
The Duesbury spokesman confirmed: “A number of hospital investors/operator groups are in discussions with the owners of the site with regard to its future use.”

He said the plans are due to be lodged within the next eight weeks with the town council following the An Bord Pleanála decision.

Duesbury Ltd had referred the planning application to An Bord Pleanála for clarification to see if it would be considered strategic infrastructure.
However, in correspondence released by the appeals board, it shows that consultants on behalf of Duesbury, MH Associates, argued that the 97-bed hospital “is not of significant scale given it is essentially an extension to an existing hospital”.

The consultants argued that the plan was not a strategic infrastructure case. “We submit that the proposed development would not be of strategic economic/social importance to the State.

“While it is clear that there is a demand for such a proposal in the region, including private beds and that the proposal generally complies with the evolving Government policy on healthcare provision, there is a lacking of national guidance and policy on the provision of private hospitals of the scale proposed.”

In its decision the board inspector’s report stated that the hospital was below the 100 inpatient bed threshold and does not constitute strategic infrastructure.

The report recommended that having regard to the nature and scale of the proposed development, it was considered that it does not fall within the definition.

The expected lodging of the plans comes after plans for a €40 million private hospital on the western fringes of Ennis last year were refused planning permission by An Bord Pleanála.

© 2012 The Irish Times

pappyodaniel

I only went for a walk around the grounds 2 weeks ago and am delighted to hear that it's going ahead. It's an ideal site.

Clareman

I'm giving this thread a bump as I've moved comments from it to a separate thread so this 1 has dropped down the list.

Balagan

Difficult to see the need for a private hospital in Ennis, with the Bon Secours and Galway Clinic and Barringtons and isn't the new Limerick Private nearing completion or did I miss something?

A private hospital in Ennis would be good for those to whom it gives employment and for those who are in a position to afford to use it. But for the rest of us, there'll still be the need to go in to Limerick Midwestern for even basic things like ultrasound scans etc., despite the whopping expansion on the grounds on Ennis Hospital which seems to have contributed feck all to the service it provides.

Clareman

Private hospitals will have a certain amount of rooms made available for public patients, the HSE pay the hospital for the use of the room. Personally I think it would be a great addition to the town and the county, you are quite right when you say that there are hospitals in Limerick and Galway, but they can be very difficult for people to get to, especially people without cars, my mother had her hip replaced a few years ago in Galway and it was a bit of a chore to get up to visit her, my brother, sister and I had a rota done up to go visit her, whereas if she was closer we could just drop in or out whenever.

MyKeyG

Clareman wrote: »

Private hospitals will have a certain amount of rooms made available for public patients, the HSE pay the hospital for the use of the room. Personally I think it would be a great addition to the town and the county, you are quite right when you say that there are hospitals in Limerick and Galway, but they can be very difficult for people to get to, especially people without cars, my mother had her hip replaced a few years ago in Galway and it was a bit of a chore to get up to visit her, my brother, sister and I had a rota done up to go visit her, whereas if she was closer we could just drop in or out whenever.

Fair enough CM but the availability of public beds is very limited and the only reason they are there is as a requirement in the planning application. That your mam would have got one is a lottery. If she could afford one fair play but my point overall is that the percentages of service to the average Joe in the current climate is very limited. You do realise that the HSE pay only a fraction of what the room costs to the average wealthy person paying out of their pocket or through insurance.