Galway Bay fm newsroom - Construction is set to commence this month on a long awaited orthopaedic theatre building at Merlin Park Hospital.
The will involve two additional operating theatres for elective orthopaedic procedures while the existing theatre will be retained and used for less complex cases.
The theatres at Merlin Park were shut down in 2017 due to a leaking roof which led to urgent calls to address the issue due to growing patient lists.
The project faced various setbacks with planning issues and various measures were taken to maintain activity levels in the interim, including the transfer of some elective procedures to UHG.
The number of patients awaiting inpatient or day-case orthopaedic care in Galway stood at 1,349 at the end of November 2020.
Minister of State and Galway West TD Hildegarde Naughton says the new facilities will exceed the operating capacity of the previous orthopaedic theatre building that was closed in September 2017.
She says it's scheduled to reach completion by the end of the year.
