Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly has received Cabinet’s approval to go to tender for the construction of the new National Maternity Hospital (NMH) at St Vincent’s University Hospital (SVUH) at Elm Park.
In July, Cabinet approved the business cases for the relocation of the NMH which enables the HSE to deploy its tender strategy to find a bidder to construct the new 244-bed maternity hospital.
Once a successful bidder has been identified by the HSE following a tender process, the Minister for Health will return to Cabinet to seek approval for the signing of contracts and to enable the project to proceed to the main construction phase.
The Department of Health said the project will proceed to the tendering stage for the main works in line with EU and national requirements. The procurement process will run in parallel to further enabling works on the SVUH campus. The enabling works will clear the site by decanting existing SVUH buildings to further de-risk the main works.
“The Procurement Process will be approximately 18 – 21 months, to ensure sufficient time for the market to respond with the scale and complexity of the works, and sufficient time for tender appraisal to ensure the ‘Most Economically Advantageous Tender’ is selected.
“The proposed new NMH building will be located at the eastern side of the St Vincent’s University Hospital campus at Elm Park. It will comprise a 7-story building with a gross internal floor area of up to approximately 54,000m2. It will include 244 beds, an increase of 80 in-patient and day case beds from the existing number at Holles Street, 5 Theatres, 24 Birthing Rooms, early pregnancy foetal assessment and ultrasound facilities, and spaces to aid in near-patient education and professional development for healthcare professionals.
The new NMH will also provide facilities to support a range of maternity, gynaecological and neonatal services such as enabling gynaecology service reforms recently developed at the Holles Street site to be deployed to their full capacity, including ambulatory gynaecology, specialist menopause clinic, regional fertility hub, endometriosis hub, and a national mesh complications service.
Minister Donnelly said, “This will not just be a replacement of the existing National Maternity Hospital but will offer almost 50% more in-patient and day case beds and provide additional capacity to manage national unmet need for women’s health services. The contemporary design of the new NMH provides flexibility to allow for the delivery of clinical services and to adapt to both expected and unforeseen change into the future.”
