St. Patrick's Hospital (Cork) Ltd has announced the formal launch of its new hospice and hospital project.

The development will see the transfer of the specialist palliative care services currently provided in Marymount Hospice and the services for older people delivered in St Patrick's Hospital, to a purpose-built facility on a greenfield site at Ballinaspig More, Waterfall Road, on the outskirts of Cork city.

The new hospice will have 44 beds, compared with the current 24, made up entirely of ensuite single rooms with facilities for relatives to stay overnight if required. Meanwhile, the new hospital will increase the bed capacity for older people from the current 64 beds to 75. The three elderly care wards will have 17 single rooms and two four-bedded rooms each, all with ensuite facilities. Both services will be accommodated in cheerful and spacious settings, which will meet the highest clinical standards for care and infection control whilst still being homely and welcoming.

The project is being overseen by a Project Team made up of representatives of the Health Service Executive and the Hospital, which was established in 2001 by the then Minister for Health & Children, Mr. Micheál Martin, TD.

The new facilities will cost about €75 million, making it one of the most significant healthcare developments in Cork this year. The Department of Health & Children is contributing €17.5 million to the project and the balance is being made up from the proceeds of the sale of the property on Wellington Road, a grant of €10 million from the Atlantic Philanthropies, a Bermuda-based philanthropic organisation who became interested in the work of Marymount Hospice through its aging programme in Ireland, and local fundraising.

It is expected that the project will go to tender in July 2008, and that construction will start at the end of October the same year. The construction phase will last for 18 months, with a further six months required for commissioning. It is intended that the first services will transfer in October 2010.

Speaking at the launch Mr Kevin O'Dwyer, the Hospital CEO commented, "Fundraising, which has been ongoing since the idea of the new hospice was first mooted, has been remarkably successful, thanks to the astonishing generosity of the people of Cork. The Hospital is enormously indebted to them, and to its volunteer fundraisers, the Friends of St. Patrick's Hospital & Marymount Hospice. The target for local fundraising is €9 million, i.e. €3 million per year for the next three years."

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