THE HSE has requested that some of the conditions demanded by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) be withdrawn when registering the 68-bed Dingle Community Hospital.
The hospital, built at a cost of €16.4 million and completed in December 2008, has still not opened to patients.
Patients are waiting to move from the 19th century St Elizabeth’s hospital, a facility with just two showers, and which has been described as crumbling, as well as from a facility in Killarney 40 miles away.
The Dingle unit’s design and build was prior to July 2009 when Hiqa became responsible for the registration and inspection of all residential care services for older people.
Amid mounting pressure from local people and from public representatives, the HSE has requested a waiving of some of the conditions outlined in the notice of proposal forwarded to the executive from Hiqa.
The HSE is asking a deferral of changes to the structural layout of the rooms and bathrooms, saying the unit was built prior to the Hiqa regulations for new builds.
It is also asking Hiqa to defer regulations pertaining to room-occupancy levels for a period of two years.
The HSE said if these waivers were to be granted it would allow it open the unit on a phased basis as was originally planned, beginning with 46 beds, without undertaking structural alterations.