Cllr's fears for regional hospital if Dublin plan goes ahead

Plans for a €756 million medical centre of excellence, including a 320-bed hospital in Balgriffin, north Dublin, could spell the end of hopes for a regional hospital for the north-east, a councillor claimed this week. Cllr Tommy Reilly said the scale of the plan for the complex on the site of the former Belcamp College posed major questions over plans for the proposed regional hospital slated for Navan. Developer Gerry Gannon has proposed building a new third-level educational, medical and research campus on 60 acres of a 220-acre Belcamp site. The developer claims that the project would create more than 15,000 skilled and semi-skilled jobs. Fingal County Council is keen on the project, said to be one of the biggest developments in the Dublin area in recent years. Plans submitted by the developer state that 8,000 direct and indirect construction jobs would be created during the building period of 10 years, and the centre of excellence when complete would come up with a further 7,000 jobs. The Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) has facilities in a number of lcoations in Dublin and the building of the campus at Belcamp would bring them all together. The centralised campus would provide facilities for clinical training, research and patient care. The plans include a 39,000 square metre medical college, four to five storeys in height, to include a medical facility, offices, reasearch departments and sub-faculties such as nursing, dentistry and physiotherapy, providing space for over 2,000 medical students. A 64,000 square metre hospital in six storeys is also planned. It would be a privately owned and managed 'not for profit' teaching facility, allowing for a maximum tie-in with the medical college and catering for private and elective HSE patients. The plans include a 90-bed nursing home and a hotel, which would be used for visitors or as a step-down facility for patients who have been discharged from the hospital but who are not yet ready to return home. Cllr Tommy Reilly said he wished the project well if it came to fruition. The question to be asked is whether Meath and Navan have missed the boat on a regional hospital. Navan has been chosen as the location for a new regional hospital but what would be the point in building it if this Belcamp project goes ahead, he asked. "I am very concerned about the future of the regional hospital project and I think it is now time for the issue to be clarified so that the north-east knows where it is going in relation to providing much-needed medical facilities here," said Cllr Reilly.