Almost ten million euro in funding has been approved for a theatre upgrade at Ennis General Hospital.
The HSE has approved the capital allocation and has confirmed that the project has already progressed to the design stage.
The CEO of the UL Hospitals Group has received confirmation from the HSE that a €9.95m capital budget allocation has been approved for a theatre upgrade at Ennis Hospital and that the project has already progressed to design stage.
The decision has been confirmed by Colette Cowan in response to representations by Clare Independent TD Michael McNamara on theatre usage at Ennis, University Hospital Limerick, Nenagh and St. John’s Hospitals during the pandemic.
He believes theatre usage at Ennis General was disproportionately impacted during the pandemic, with the number of procedures carried out there dropping by 56% between 2019 and 2021.
This compares to a 40% reduction at Nenagh Hospital, a 25% reduction at St. John’s Hospital in Limerick and an 8% reduction in UHL over the same periods.
The HSE says however that this can partly be attributed to the need to redeploy staff to UHL to support critical care and emergency care at different stages of the pandemic.
Last December, the Chief Clinical Director of the UL Hospitals Group, Professor Brian Lennihan told a meeting of Clare County Council that the two theatres would predominately be for day-care surgery.
But Scariff Deputy McNamara is now making fresh calls on the UL Hospitals Group to reconsider reclassifying Ennis as a model three hospital to facilitate late evening and overnight surgical cases, as part of efforts to tackle excessive waiting lists.
