THE HSE HAS purchased a 44-acre greenfield site for a new hospital facility just two kilometres from University Hospital Limerick in Dooradoyle for €14m.

Speaking today, Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill expressed hope that the new facility in Raheen would “provide meaningful additional capacity and health services to the people of Limerick, Clare and Tipperary”.

Last September, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) published an independent and expert review for Carroll MacNeill on the delivery of urgent and emergency healthcare services in the Mid West.

It proposed three options.

Option A would have included expanded capacity at University Hospital Limerick (UHL), Option B called for a new nearby site to be developed, while Option C called for the development of a new hospital in the Mid West with an emergency department.

Carroll MacNeill said the acquisition of a site adjacent to UHL, just 2km away, is in line with Option B.

The 44-acre site is located in Raheen, between Ballycummin Avenue and the Patrickswell Road.

Carroll MacNeill said a project board will now be established and it will “judiciously consider what services we must have on that UHL site, which we can relocate nearby to this new site and which services we can relocate to Ennis, St John’s or Nenagh”.

The Raheen site is about a half-hour drive from the model two hospitals in Nenagh, north Tipperary, and Ennis, Co Clare.

Carroll MacNeill said she will be “returning to Government later this year with a strategic plan for the services of the region”.

She also said it was too early to say how many additional beds and jobs would be created on the Raheen site, and whether or not it would include a 24-hour emergency department.

Shd added that she could not confirm if a second ED would be included on the Raheen site, but did not rule it out.

The Dooradoyle site is persistently the most overcrowded hospital nationally, and there have been repeated calls within the region for additional ED services.

The minister said she was also aware of the requirement to attract staff and provide housing for doctors and nurses for the Raheen hospital campus, as well as the requirement to provide housing for these workers.

Speaking after attending Carroll MacNeill’s announcement of the Raheen site, the Mayor of Limerick, John Moran, said he has been in talks with the HSE to provide modular homes as well as seventy acres on a proposed rail link, that he believes could be used by staff at the proposed hospital campus at Raheen.

“It’s located right between lands that Limerick city and county council is purchasing in Patrickswell – seventy acres for housing which we got for €4million,” said mayor Moran.

The lands acquired by the Council “are basically located either side of this (Raheen site),” said Moran.

“With the smart homes that we have also offered to the HSE, if it takes them 15-20 years to use up some of their site, we can put smart homes on it, and actually have housing right on the site.

“We are all working together in the background to make this all happen,” added Moran.

-With additional reporting from David Raleigh