A £25 million extension to Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar, the largest single capital project ever undertaken by the Western Health Board, will be completed by mid-2001. Its programme manager, Dr Sean Conroy, has told the board that hospital beds will increase from 226 to 314.
The hospital, opened in 1936 with 162 beds, underwent the first phase of its development in 1989 and cost £11.5 million.
Work on the second phase will start once the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, decides in May on the best tender.
The facility will incorporate medical, surgical, orthopaedic, radiology, obstetrics, gynaecology and pathology departments along with an accident and emergency suite, a pharmacy, a geriatric assessment unit, an acute psychiatric unit and an adolescent and child psychiatric unit.