New 98-bed wing opens in Mater hospital

A new 98-bed hospital wing given the green light during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and built in two years has been opened in the Mater hospital in Dublin.

Alan Sharp, chief executive of the hospital, said the €103 million hospital wing had come in on time and within budget, using fast-track legislation to bypass the traditional procurement process for large capital projects.

The new wing, named after former chairwoman of the hospital, Sr Margherita Rock, consists of single-bed en suite rooms and includes 16 intensive care units (ICU) beds.

Mr Sharp said a business case for the project was “pulled together” in two weeks at the height of the pandemic.

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The plan was approved by the Health Service Executive (HSE) after six weeks’ consideration in late 2020, which was “unheard of”, he said.

“The Covid pandemic shows that our hospitals were unfit to deal with a deadly, highly infectious disease. We didn’t have enough beds and we certainly haven’t got enough ICU beds,” he said.

[ Patients waiting more than 24 hours for bed in EDs up 20% last year ]

David Begg, chair of the hospital’s board, said the new facility has been built in “the teeth” of Covid-19.

The hospital said it anticipated the nine-storey wing would be able to cater for an extra 5,000 patients over the course of a year.

The new wing will include a 24-bed trauma ward, as the Mater hospital will operate as one of the country’s two major trauma centres, with the other in Cork University Hospital.

The two main centres will cater to major trauma patients, while there will be an additional 11 trauma units elsewhere across the country.

Speaking at the launch on Thursday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the huge increases in the Department of Health budget “can only go on for so long”.

[ Mater Private evacuated after fire alert with patients and staff ushered out of building ]

A 50 per cent increase in the department’s spending over recent years was not “sustainable forever”, he said.

“That’s why reform is so important and that we don’t just do more, we also do things better and do things differently,” he said.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said he was “fully cognisant of the shot across the bow from the Taoiseach, that we won’t be able to keep going at the pace of investment”.