Progress on new Primary Care Centre for Portlaoise
The new Primary Care Centre will be built at the St Fintan's Hospital campus
SOME long-awaited progress has been made on the provision of a Primary Care Centre for Portlaoise and the surrounding district.
The project is at the design stage and a planning application is expected to be lodged with Laois County Council by the end of this June.
The HSE has outlined the current state of the project and the preliminary work that is underway on the new centre, which will be located in the grounds of St Fintan’s Campus on the Dublin Road.
The update came in response to a parliamentary question by local Independent TD Brian Stanley to health minister Jennifer MacNeill,.
The response indicates that the project will be delivered directly by the HSE, through the HSE capital plan. Funding has been allocated to progress it through the design and planning stages.
An architectural design team has been engaged and stage 1 preliminary design has been approved by the HSE and the department of health. The project has been moved on to detailed design stage 2.
The department and the HSE have confirmed that they anticipate lodging a planning application with Laois County Council by the end of this June.
The centre will provide a range of facilities, from GP care and public health nursing to therapies, treatments and community services.
Deputy Stanley said in a statement today: 'I welcome this news, as Portlaoise is one of the few towns of its size in the country without a Primary Care Centre. GP facilities in the town and surrounding areas are stretched to the limit, due to the absence of such a Primary Care Centre.
'People find themselves going to the Emergency Department in the General Hospital for a range of services that should be provided by Primary Care within the community. I now hope this will move through the stages quickly to start construction as soon as possible.'
