Hospice site decision 'imminent'
With the highly-anticipated announcement of the site for the new Midlands Hospice expected imminently, Offaly Hospice Foundation issued a statement this week listing nine advantages of its preferred location for the facility on the campus of Wellwood Health Park.
Two locations in Tullamore have emerged as potential sites for the new hospice. The site favoured by Offaly Hospice Foundation is at Wellwood Health Park just off the N52 bypass, which is to be the location for a private hospital to be developed by the Flanagan Group, while the second location is on a 3.7 acre site at Arden Lane.
On a visit to Tullamore last February, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly confirmed that the original site – on the grounds of Tullamore Hospital – had been abandoned as it came with “some significant limitations.”
He added that two other sites were being appraised, and promised to make a decision on a site “very quickly”.
It is understood that an independent review of the two sites, which was commissioned by the HSE, selected the Arden Lane site as most suitable, and it is also the site favoured by the Irish Hospice Foundation, three Midlands-based hospice groups, one in Laois and two in Westmeath, and also the Tullamore Lions Club's Hooves4Hospice group, which has raised over €1 million towards the cost of the 20-bed Midlands Hospice.
Earlier this week, the Offaly Hospice Foundation issued a statement to local media in which it outlined nine key reasons why the new hospice for the Midlands should be located on the Wellwood Health Park.
The statement also pointed out that, since its foundation 34 years ago, Offaly Hospice has been the “key fundraising organisation promoting palliative care services in Offaly and more widely across the Midlands region”.
The statement added that, apart from its long-running campaign to build and commission the Midlands regional hospice, the Offaly Hospice Foundation has supported the community and health care team and has donated over €1.3 million to the HSE over the past ten years to “help provide these services, and will continue to do so”.
Among the reasons it outlined as to why the Wellwood site is more favourable as the location for the new new hospice were: co-location to the existing Tullamore hospital; appropriate zoning; no external infrastructural challenges; excellent public connectivity to the site; the existence of an Uisce Eireann connection agreement; and direct access to the site from the N52 bypass.