Beacon Medical Group will press ahead with the construction of a new maternity, women's and children's hospital in Dublin, having lost out on the acquisition of Mount Carmel earlier this month.
Beacon, the privately-backed healthcare operator, had planned to construct the new facility in advance of bidding for Mount Carmel but held off while the sale process was ongoing.
Pauline Cullen, commercial director with Beacon, said the company had been disappointed not to win the contest to buy Mount Carmel, the private hospital located in Churchtown, Dublin. Mount Carmel, which is said to have attracted a price tag of up to €65 million, is renowned for its maternity service.
Beacon plans to locate its own maternity, women's and children's facility on the Beacon South Quarter, a site that used to house Microsoft in Sandyford.
The hospital, a facility of between 120,000 and 140,000sq ft, could be expected to house more than 100 beds. A rule of thumb in private hospital development, is that one bed is provided at a cost of €1 million.
"There is a gap in the market for high-level emergency paediatric and maternity facilities," said Ms Cullen.
While Beacon has not yet submitted a formal planning application for the hospital, Ms Cullen said the land has been rezoned to allow for this to happen.
She acknowledged that if the company had been successful in buying Mount Carmel from the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary, it would have invested there instead.
The firm also wanted to build a €500 million national children's hospital for the State but learned earlier this year that this would be located at the Mater in Dublin instead.
Beacon's more immediate priorities are the opening of its new 183-bed Beacon Hospital in Sandyford in the autumn and the submission of tenders to the Health Service Executive for the development of private hospitals on public hospital land.
The company has applied to develop six of these "co-location" facilities and expects to be told of its success or failure at the beginning of next month.
To date, Beacon has established a consultants' clinic at Sandyford and a campus, which includes a renal clinic, a dental clinic and a dermatology facility.
The renal clinic, which opened in 2004, serves 90 dialysis patients each week.
Accounts posted at the Companies Office for the facility show that it had a deficit of €215,204 at the end of June, 2005. This led to a shareholders' deficit of €214,204.
At the end of August last year, Beacon Medical Group Limited, a holding company for the group, had shareholders' funds of €12.9 million, up from €852 a year earlier.
The jump reflected a revaluation of the company's physical assets rather than a trading performance.
The consultants' clinic is structured as a partnership.
