This article is from page 6 of the 2013-07-30 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
LESS than a year after it was threatened with closure, representatives of the Ennistymon Community Hospital yesterday signed contracts which will secure the facilities future for a generation.
Following a mammoth local fundraising operation, The Friends of Ennistymon’s Hospital and the HSE yesterday signed contracts for Phase 1 of a € 3 million master plan for the facility.
Construction work will begin in early August with Phase 2 of the project likely to get underway at some stage in 2014.
In order to secure this new future for the facility, the Friends of Ennistymon Hospital have raised an incredible € 400,000 from local people to co-fund Phase 1 with the HSE.
A similar amount of money will also need to be raised locally to cofund the second part of the project. Yesterday’s contract signing seems like no more then a dream last year, when the facility was threatened with closure for the third time in as many years.
“The contracts were signed this morning which is a great relief for all of us.
“This is a major step forward, in the last six months we were threatened with the hospital being closed.
“That is the third time in recent years that we have been told that Ennistymon hospital was in danger of being closed,” said Thomas O’Sullivan of Friends of Ennistymon Hospital.
“It came down to what funding we could put up to back up our talk. So we were able to go to the HSE, from our small community, with € 400,000 for Phase 1.
“This is an incredible amount of money for the people of North Clare to come up with.
“We have people at church gate collection from Mullagh up to New Quay and down to Kilnamona and the support that we have got is really tremendous.
“These local people are the real back bone of our funding. That proves to us that people really want it.”
The development will see the total transformation of the facility, with twin on-suite rooms replacing the current ward-style sleeping arrangements. Phase 1 will focus on the mens and women’s sleeping quarters while Phase 2 will develop the mens area.
“As soon as the first section is nearing completion we will start looking at Phase 2.
“We have started fundraising for that already and hopefully we can progress that in the next eight or 10 months,” continued Thomas.