Beacon gets green light in Cork

Beacon Medical has been given planning permission for a co-located hospital at the Cork University Hospital site, which it says could create more than 500 jobs.

The new privately operated facility at CUH will cost €250 million, and will feature 175 single rooms, six operating theatres, ambulatory surgery and full diagnostic facilities. It will provide services to both public and private patients.

Once completed, the hospital will be able to treat 11,000 inpatients and 20,000 day patients each year, perform 12,000 surgeries and carry out about 17,000 imaging procedures.

Facilities and staff will also be available for public patients should CUH need extra capacity.

Medical director of the group Professor Mark Redmond said the state-of-the-art medical facility would bring "significant benefits" to the local community.

The hospital will directly employ more than 500 staff in healthcare, administrative and support staff, with a further 787 staff employed indirectly at healthcare suppliers, equipment companies and service agencies.

The proposed facility has yet to get funding, which Beacon Medical Group said it was confident of getting once final contracts are signed off by the HSE and Department of Health and Children.

The group has now secured planning permission for three co-located hospitals, with the other two located at Mid-West Regional Hospital and Beaumont Hospital. The three facilities are expected to create more than 1,400 jobs when fully operational, with over 1,820 construction jobs also in the pipeline. An additional 5,250 jobs will be created indirectly by the new facilities, which are expected to treat more than 30,000 patients each year.