The Bon Secours hospital will provide 250 new high-skilled jobs and 150 additional beds in Limerick
By Aislinn Kelly
A new €190 million Bon Secours hospital in Ballysimon is set to open in 2025, with the aim of expanding the healthcare services offered to patients in the Mid-West.
The Limerick hospital expects to treat more than 50,000 patients annually through a wide range of new services, facilities and technologically-advanced care.
The hospital will create 250 new highly-skilled jobs and provide 150 additional beds available to both public and private patients.
The development is part of a wider €300 million national investment by Bon Secours Health System, in line with its 2025 Strategic Plan.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was on-site to turn the first sod on Friday, February 17.
The Taoiseach said the hospital was “an extremely welcome healthcare development for Limerick and the Mid-West region”.
Day-care surgical and oncology treatments will be available at the new Limerick hospital, with a new cath lab, general medicine and cardiology also catered for.
The development will also have a 10-bay medical assessment unit, four operating theatres and a dedicated ophthalmology unit.
The development’s promise of increasing capacity for healthcare services in the Midwest comes less than a month after 87 consultants at University Hospital Limerick signed an open letter to urge change at the regional hospital.
The medics stated that their ability to provide care to patients at UHL is “stretched beyond its current capacity.”
The letter came days after more than 11,000 people took part in a protest demanding better healthcare for the region.
The medics cited a ‘poorly resourced reconfiguration of hospital services in the Midwest’ and the failure to deliver 640 beds needed to support this plan as the main source of the issue.
Sinn Féin TD for Limerick, Maurice Quinlivan, said in response to the open letter, “The (UHL) Emergency Department, when built in 2017, was designed for a maximum attendance of 190 patients per day. The consultants note that there are over 240 patients seen at the ED every day.
“This is not sustainable, particularly when one considers that there are only 530 in-patient beds in the unit. UL Hospital Group management have acknowledged that they need at least 200 more beds.”
The letter called for urgent intervention and for the use of Model-2 hospitals in a safe and clinically effective manner.
