Thurles Information

It has taken just 11 months from the arrival of builders on site to the point where they will officially hand over the new finished unit at South Tipperary General Hospital tomorrow, January 16th, 2020. The completely finished project has cost approximately €20m, with construction costs coming in at just under €10m. The unit will be fitted out to the very highest of standards with each room deemed to be ‘gold standard’.

To date a staff of 109, including nurses, health care assistants and related staff have been employed for the new unit with the recruitment of additional physiotherapy, speech and language and other speciality services in the pipeline.

“The reality is that seeing is believing” said Prof. Peter Murchan, Consultant General Surgeon at South Tipperary General Hospital as he proudly led a tour of this new 40 bed facility at the hospital on Monday last. Acknowledging that many had said it could not be done, he emphasised that the state-of-the-art facility is due to the ‘enormous hands on commitment’ of Deputy Michael Lowry, latter who networked with both the Departments of Health & Finance, to push this project forward.

‘Michael Lowry has been a tremendous driver of this project and, without his help, it could not have been done in such a timely fashion or, indeed, not done at all. We are extremely grateful to him’, said the esteemed Consultant, adding ‘Credit where credit is due to Michael’.

The ultra-modern 40 bed unit at the Clonmel Hospital comprises an overall 3,300sq.m. area, 1,700 sq m of which is working floor area. It is a two-storey building, designed and erected by E.S.S. (Extra Space Solutions) with 20 single rooms on the lower level Surgical area and the same number of individual rooms on the upper level Medical floor. All rooms provide for isolation care if required, as well as greatly assisting the hospital in helping to provide a solution to serious over-crowding in the Emergency Department and main hospital, while also increasing the capacity to provide elective procedures.

Speaking on the first tour of the new facility on Monday, Deputy Lowry said that the Hospital has been under serious pressure, adding that “This is the first real investment it has had in many years and it will secure the hospital into the future”.

Giving credit to the partnership approach involved in bringing the project to fruition, Deputy Lowry said that there are still those out there who say that this project couldn’t or wouldn’t happen, “but here it is and I am delighted to have played a role in it”, he concluded.

Some 118,367 patients found themselves without a hospital bed in 2019, according to an end-of-year analysis supplied by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO). Of those affected patients, some 1,300 were children under the age of 16 years.

The figures clearly demonstrate that in 2019 we saw a rise of some 9% above similar figures produced in 2018, making it the worst-ever year for hospital overcrowding, since records initially began.

The worst month for overcrowding, during 2019, was November with 12,055 without a hospital bed. Figures for the months of October and September remained nothing to write home about either, with same analysis showing 11,452 and 10,641 patients, respectively, experiencing similar difficulties.

To the shame of our elected representatives here in Co. Tipperary, the worst-hit hospital in the state, in 2019, was University Hospital Limerick, with 13,941 patients left waiting, latter serving the residents of North Tipperary. Same hospital is situated some 79 kilometres (49 miles) from Thurles, via the M7, or some 1 hour & 10 minutes driving time, subject to traffic density.

South Tipperary General Hospital, serving the south of the county, had 6,942 patients in 2019 without a hospital bed.

The INMO end-of-year analysis conclude that under-staffing and the lack of bed capacity remain the key drivers when it comes to overcrowding. They point out that 411 fewer in-patient beds exist here in Ireland’s hospitals today, than existed a decade ago, despite our emerging larger and older population.