The funding is finally set to be announced this morning for a long-awaited MRI scanner for St Luke’s Hospital.
Health Minister Simon Harris will announce the €2.3 billion HSE capital plan today.
The MRI and a new 75-bed unit for the local hospital is included in it.
Local Junior Minister, John Paul Phelan has told KCLR News, he hopes the process of getting the scanner in particular will start to move a lot faster now noting “The first thing we have to get is those tender documents for the MRI, the MRI will happen first and it has been something that’s been spoken about for many years but I suppose it’s been to the forefront for the last few years and we need to have an immediate action now that we’re in September”.
Minister Phelan says “St Luke’s is the tenth busiest hospital in the country in terms of through-put and one of hte very few busy ones that doesn’t & hasn’t heretofore had an MRI scanner so it’s logic as well as the necessity of having it in any acute hospital”.
And he adds “The current system whereby people have to be transported by ambulance from Kilkenny to Dublin or Waterford to get an MRI scanner it’s costly job in itself there could be a number of savings made by having the actual scanner on site itself”.
The first thing that will be secured is the date to when the tender documents will be published and Minister Phelan says “that needs to happen as soon as possible in this month of September 2019”.
