Peamount Healthcare €24m 100-bed development begins
By William O'Connor
THE SOD was turned on the €24 million investment at Peamount Healthcare’s new 100-bed development in Newcastle on Wednesday morning.
The development was funded by the sale of lands belonging to Peamount Healthcare and a significant capital investment from the Health Service Executive.
Peamount Healthcare is an independent voluntary organisation that operates in partnership with the HSE to provide a range of health and social care services for the Dublin Mid-Leinster Region.
Peamount Healthcare currently operates 219 beds between campus and community services with a headcount of 500 employees.
Minister for Health Simon Harris stated that when he asked a resident what it was like to live in Peamount he said “heaven on earth”, Minister Harris noted that he is “extraordinarily proud of the people who work in our health service “ and he thanked Suzanne Corcoran, Peamount HealthCare’s Management Team, the Board chaired by John Delaney, and all the staff working in Peamount for providing excellent care to people with complex needs.
Peamount Healthcare has a long history dating back to 1912 when the facility opened as a tuberculosis sanatorium.
It quickly became the largest such unit in Ireland and developed as a centre of excellence, delivering high-quality care to patients and service users and this ethos continues. In the 1960s Peamount changed service direction and opened residential services for Intellectual Disability. Since that time services have expanded and developed and now include: Rehabilitation Care for Respiratory and Age-Related Conditions; Residential Services for Long-Stay Neurological Disability; Residential Services for Long-Stay Age-Related Conditions; Residential Services for Intellectual Disability and Community Outpatient Services.
Minister Harris noted that in the past Peamount “made an incredible contribution to tackling tuberculosis, I would now say the challenge falls to Peamount and to the next generation of leaders, to tackle one of the great challenges of today that our Health Service faces and that is a demographic challenge. Our population is growing and our population is aging and will have healthcare needs.
“What you are doing here today is already beginning to fulfil that challenge providing residential care, providing short stay care, looking after people with complex needs and what you are doing today is adding more capacity to that. In building a new unit and turning the sod on that today we will see 100 beds. Fifty will enable residents to have better facilities because we know parts of Peamount are very old and 50 beds will provide us with more Neuro Rehabilitation capacity, something we badly need in this county. I am really excited about the contribution that this development is going to make.”
Suzanne Corcoran, Chief Executive Officer, Peamount Healthcare announced that “Peamont Healthcare’s present strategy is to expand rehabilitation services in conjunction with the National Neuro Rehabilitation Strategy. The new building will provide 50 replacement Older Persons residential beds in addition to a new 50-bed unit. This development will be a support to the acute hospital system for the early transfer of patients for follow-on care”.
