Mercy Hospital unveils new out-patients department

THE MERCY University Hospital is preparing to open a new purpose-built, patient-friendly Outpatients Department (OPD) complete with dressing clinic, consultation rooms, blood rooms and wheelchair parking spaces and entrance.

The new OPD, which is streets ahead of the old department, is to open on Monday.

The main entrance is located on Lynch’s Street while the wheelchair entrance can be found on Sheare’s Street directly across from three new disabled parking spaces, installed specifically for the new OPD.

“It’s just like moving house,” laughed Martina Hughes, Assistant Director of Nursing at the hospital.

“We’ve brought everything from the old building across to this new facility and we’re looking forward to welcoming patients next week.”

On most occasions, the OPD is the first contact a patient has with Mercy University Hospital.

“That’s why it’s great to have this new facility, which is very welcoming, comfortable and modern,” added Ms Hughes.

The new building, spanning across two floors, will cater to consultants and nursing staff in various fields ranging from general medicine and surgery to paediatrics, haematology and cardiology.

The OPD catered for over 45,000 patients in 2017 between the general department and the Warfarin clinic and is predicted to cater for a similar amount in 2018.

“In out Hepatobiliary (which refers to the gallbladder, bile ducts, or bile) department, for example, between our two consultants one could see between 45 and 50 patients and the other who is shared with CUH could see 25 and that’s all in one morning,” said Jean O’Sullivan CNM2 clinical nurse manager.

“If there is a particularly urgent case in A&E as well and they can’t see them, we would be mandated to take them over to outpatients and we get patients coming from all across Ireland,” added Ms Hughes.

“That’s why it was great to get a new facility which can cater to all our patients but one which is still so close to the main hospital building.

“While there is lots of space and room, we’ve planned it so that everything that needs to be close by is, for example, vascular surgery patients will come in for dressing and we’ve made sure the vascular surgeons offices are directly beside the dressing clinic.”

The current OPD was closed for all services this week with the exception of the Warfarin clinic, OPAT clinic and dressing clinic, to facilitate the opening of the new department.

“We’ve been carefully planning and we’ve known since last year the dates we would be moving so we didn’t take any bookings for this week, we were able to work around it and there has been no disruption to our services,” said Ms O’Sullivan.

“We expect next week to be business as usual and we’re already set to be very busy,” she smiled.

The OPD have taken on two new consultants in preparation for the new facility and they hope to add another in the field of urology at the end of 2018 or start of 2019.

They have also added a nurse to the staff and say the recruitment process is ongoing.

“The recruitment process is always ongoing at the Mercy, we don’t have these big drives at certain times,” said Ms Hughes.

“If someone arrives at the hospital with their CV and the desire to work here, we’re always happy to see that.”