asked the Minister for Health if he will outline the future of Wexford County Hospital; and what improvements there will be in the immediate future.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Wexford County Hospital.
2.
The Consultative Council on the General Hospital Services has recommended that the services to be provided in Wexford should include medicine, obstetrics and geriatrics together with radiology and pathology. In addition a comprehensive range of specialist services would be available on an out-patient basis. The Consultative Council did not consider that major surgery should be continued in Wexford. The detailed recommendations in the Report must await further study by the South Eastern Health Board and the proposed Dublin Regional Hospital Board before a final decision is reached on this question.
With a view to meeting the most pressing needs for improvement in the acute hospital situation in Wexford, I have approved proposals, which I hope to see implemented without delay, involving the building of a new 31-bed maternity unit and a new 50-bed geriatric unit which will be used initially to accommodate the medical work which has been carried on temporarily at Brownswood, Enniscorthy. The planning of these works is well advanced and represents a substantial instalment of the new hospital accommodation which I accept as being necessary in Wexford whatever the final decision may be as to the precise nature of the medical work to be carried on there.
Am I to take it from the Minister's reply that it is envisaged that no further surgical facilities will be available in the town of Wexford?
I have already indicated to the Deputy that this matter has to be examined by the South Eastern Health Board, and the proposed Dublin Regional Hospital Board before coming to me for final decision. There is no urgency in regard to the matter. It will take some time before the necessary studies can be undertaken.
Will not the Minister agree that when he says there is no urgency in the matter, he means that the question of the erection of hospitals to replace existing ones, even if the health scheme is implemented in full, will not take place for very many years?
I cannot say how many years.
Very many years.
A number of years.