Private funds to help build new hospital?

The building of the new regional hospital for the north-east through a combination of public and private funds is being recommended to the Government as part of the 2007-2017 National Development Plan. The construction of the hospital at an as yet unknown location in Navan is being put forward as one of 12 projects which would be suitable under the public-private partnership (PPP) formula of providing public institutions. Details of the plan emerged from a private briefing given by a HSE official to Navan area county councillors in the past week. If the construction of the new hospital was to go ahead as a PPP project using private funding, it could mean the hospital could be built in a far shorter timeframe than is currently envisaged. The HSE has confirmed that the project was one of 12 put forward to the Department of Health in the last three weeks. That proposal is now expected to go forward to the Department of Finance for consideration by it and the Government. There are no details available so far of what case the HSE made for the regional hospital project, which has been the subject of rollercoaster expectations over the last few years. Meath and Drogheda were in fierce contention for the siting of the hospital and a great deal of political flak flew between the two counties in the lead-up to the HSE's announcement on the location of the 'super hospital'. Employment When consultants announced in April last year that Navan would be the location for the new hospital, Minister for Transport and Meath West TD Noel Dempsey said that it had the potential to employ 3,000 people. While a tract of land at the Tara Mines complex stood out as the most attractive to some of the interests involved in the decision-making, Meath County Council is believed to have three separate locations in mind and has not come down in favour of any specific site. At that time, too, Minister Dempsey had brushed aside the comments of his Cabinet colleague, Louth's Dermot Ahern, who said that there was not a "red cent" available for the building of the hospital. While Mr Dempsey did not name Mr Ahern in comments at the time, he said that the HSE had made great play of the fact that it saw the new regional hospital for the north-east as a pilot scheme for the rest of the country. And he said: "Anybody who knows anything about the finances of the HSE will know that it doesn't have a pot of money just waiting there to be taken up for a project of this kind. But I'm happy that Navan has got the recommendation and the onus is now on the HSE to secure the funding from the massive resources it is getting." Major blow The project received a major blow in August this year, however, when the HSE announced a decision to postpone the building of the new regional hospital. It confirmed that the new hospital was unlikely to be built for several years. It had been expected that the 750-bed institution would be up and running by 2015 but that target would not now be met, the HSE said. Deputy Damien English had said that the postponement of the delivery of the new regional hospital was a major blow for Meath and all the people in the region. He said he believed the project should be driven forward with the use of capital funding from any available source. "The location has been approved and I feel that, at the very least, the Government should go ahead with the planning stages of this project." His Fine Gael colleague, Shane McEntee, said that he would be calling on the FG party to include the new regional hospital as part of its policy on a healthcare system for the north-east. It is reckoned that it would cost €400-€500 million to build a new regional hospital, with the Government and private interests picking up the tab. It is also thought that up to €250 million would be saved by transferring resources from the five existing public hospitals in the region - Navan, Drogheda, Cavan, Monaghan and Dundalk - to the new regional facility.