The former Meath Hospital in Dublin is to offer a range of health care services, mainly for elderly people in the south inner city, following its sale today to the Eastern Health Board (EHB) for £10.75 million.
The board has set up a working party to plan the future use of the 250-bedroom disused hospital, which stands on a 3.2 acre site on Heytesbury Street. The sale was agreed in private negotiations with the Meath Foundation, a voluntary body which succeeded the hospital board following the transfer of facilities to the new hospital in Tallaght.
The two other inner-city hospitals which amalgamated when they moved to Tallaght, the Adelaide and the National Children's Hospital on Harcourt Street, have since been sold to property developers.
A former lord mayor of Dublin, Mr Alexis FitzGerald, who is a partner in the Elliott & FitzGerald estate agency, handled the negotiations between the EHB and the Meath Foundation. Dr Gerry Fitzpatrick, treasurer of the Meath Foundation, said yesterday that while they were obliged to get the full market value of the hospital, their preference was that it should remain available for health care. For that reason they were happy that the health board would provide both long term and primary care services in the city.
The proceeds of the sale will be used by the foundation to finance education, training and research in the health care area. The 175-year-old hospital closed in the summer of 1998, when its patients were transferred to the new hospital at Tallaght.
The EHB said yesterday that the working party would be looking at a proposal to use the Meath for a range of service to relieve pressure on acute hospital beds. They would also be considering opening a 50-bed unit for older people who had been medically assessed as no longer capable of being cared for in their homes.
The board may also cater for short-term planned admissions to give a break to relatives looking after the elderly. Also being considered is a 25-bed facility for elderly people needing rehabilitation after medical treatment and a day care unit offering a range of medical, nursing, paramedical and social services for elderly people in the south inner city.
The Meath Hospital was reputedly the leading Irish hospital during the 19th century, when Dublin established an international reputation for medical developments. Two of the city's leading physicians, Robert Graves and William Stokes, were associated with the Meath. At that time the hospital catered mainly for the sick poor in the Liberties, an area noted for its squalor and disease.
Another Dublin hospital catering for the elderly, Bloomfield Hospital, off Morehampton Road, Donnybrook, is due to transfer its facilities to an out-of-town location when it sells its site of almost 4.5 acres for an apartment development. Most of Dublin's leading housebuilders have tendered for the site and undertaken to develop an alternative nursing home in the south or south-west of the city.
The Donnybrook site is being sold by the Religious Society of Friends - otherwise known as the Quakers - and is valued between £15 million and £20 million.
