Regional hospital location selected

A site at Nevinstown, on the outskirts of Navan, has been selected as the preferred site for the new regional hospital for the north-east. Meath County Council has identified the site, on the Rathaldron Road, which will be close to a major M3 motorway interchange and the proposed North Navan railway station as the most suitable site for the new facility, which is expected to directly employ 3,000 people. The HSE has this week indicated that it is considering a public private partnership (PPP) to fund and build the hospital, which will cater for patients from Meath, Louth, Cavan and Monaghan. The selection of the site at Nevinstown, which is located between the Rathaldron Road in north-west Navan and the Blackwater river, comes following intensive site selection assessments, commissioned by Meath County Council. Consultant company, RPS Planning Environment, initially short-listed 10 possible sites of a minimum size of 20 hectares around the town. These sites were evaluated across a range of criteria and the recent Iarnrod Eireann scoping study, examining route options for the Navan railway line, was also taken into account The consultants then selected three possible sites as being the most suitable from a town planning perspective, including the site at Nevinstown, a site on the Trim Road and a site on the N3 Dublin Road, near the old Dublin Road. However, they have designated Nevinstown as the preferred site. However, the HSE will be examining this site in relation to technical, financial and implementation matters, and if this identifies particular difficulties with the Nevinstown site, then the other two sites will be evaluated. Transport Minister Noel Dempsey yesterday (Tuesday) welcomed the move. 'I am delighted to see this progress on the site selection for the new Navan hospital. This is excellent news for Navan and, indeed, the whole county. I am very keen to see this project progress as quickly as possible because I know how important it will be to the local community. I look forward to the HSE and Meath County Council working together this year to get this much-needed new hospital open without delay,' he said. Cllr Tommy Reilly said the M3 and railway station would be in close proximity to the site, linking the proposed new hospital with the entire north-east. He said he had been anxious to have a site identified so that the planning process could begin. 'I hope the Minister for Health will now have the mettle to push the project forward and get the necessary infrastructure up and running,' he added. He said the hospital would be the biggest single employer in the county with between 3,000 and 4,000 employed directly on the site and many more jobs would be created in companies supplying goods and services to the facility. He said he hoped to see a full medical campus on-site and hoped the facility would be a teaching hospital. He thanked the Navan area manager, Eugene Cummins, and Mr Dempsey for the work they had undertaken in relation to the project. Cllr Joe Reilly said it had been a three-step approach. Navan was selected as location for the hospital and now a preferred site had been chosen. 'We now need to frontload the building as part of the National Development Plan. I expect Minister Dempsey to win this battle at the Cabinet table as this is one of the most important projects the Government will be investing in,' he said. A spokesperson for the HSE said the North-East Regional Hospital was included at the latter end of the National Development Plan from 2013 and onwards. He said the focus of current efforts and funding were to progress the restructuring of acute services from five hospitals into two hospital sites in the north-east area within the shortest possible timeframe to address service delivery and risk issues. 'The HSE are currently reviewing costs associated with the North East Regional Hospital and are also reviewing potential alternative mechanisms, such as PPP, to fund this development,' he said. Navan was identified as the site for the new regional hospital last April. However, the decision was greeted with controversy as politicians in Louth, who had expected it to be located in Drogheda, reacted furiously to the news. Minister Dermot Ahern said at the time there wasn"t 'a red cent" in the Government"s coffers to build the hospital. The decision to build a new hospital in the north-east region, which already has five hospitals, was made by the HSE in June 2006. This followed the publication of an independent review of acute hospital services in the region which found that patients were being put at risk by the way services were organised. It is envisaged that the new 'super hospital" will be a centre of excellence which will provide A&E services, paediatrics and maternity services for the entire region.