A new €12.8 million emergency department at Cork University Hospital (CUH) that has lain idle for months is to open on Monday, it was confirmed today.
The facility will be capable of dealing with around 60,000 patients a year and replace the existing accident and emergency department - which treats around 42,000 people.
Dr Stephen Cusack, CUH's consultant in emergency medicine, said: "It is a real big step forward for the emergency services in Cork. It is a landmark actually in emergency medicine in Ireland, it is a brand new department, state-of-the-art, it should fulfil the role it is there for."
The Health Service Executive management at CUH has been meeting with the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) representatives over the past few weeks to clarify staffing levels at the new unit to ensure co-operation for the opening.
Michael Dineen, industrial relations officer with the INO, said the only "meaningful negotiations" to allow the opening go ahead have taken place in the last six to eight weeks.
The INO said the initiative would at least alleviate if not eliminate the overcrowding within the A&E department. The organisation reported there were six patients on trolleys awaiting beds in CUH yesterday, and 10 people in the Mercy Hospital in Cork.
Dr Cusack said there was a variety of solutions being offered and that a huge investment was being made in CUH. "I would hope that over the next few years that the capacity will increase and that will improve the trolley problem," he said.
But Dr Cusack warned that the problems in the A&E wards are a manifestation of the difficulties in the entire health service. "It is going to take more than one little solution to put things right and I think that we need to engage in a whole systems approach," he said.
The new A&E department includes a separate area to assess patients, facilities for the care of children, a treatment area for minor injuries and a resuscitation place with dedicated radiology facilities. It also includes treatment places, an area for emergency eye treatment and a decontamination unit.