Letterkenny General Hospital.
A new planned Radiology Department for Letterkenny General Hospital has been put on ice.
Work on the Department, which was due to start in January next, will not now commence until mid 2016 at the earliest, Donegal Daily has learned.
The delay has led to renewed fears over the future of cancer services at the hospital.
Friends of Letterkenny General Hospital raised a staggering €750,000 over the past three years for the facility with matching funding of more than €1M agreed by the Government.
The flood in 2013 damaged the old Radiology Dept and the existing Department in not fit for purpose.
Local county councillor James Pat McDaid is furious with the delay and called on the Government to come clean and commit to a guaranteed start date.
Cllr James Pat McDaid
“We are now 3 years since the flood and there is still no sign of a start date or any money being secured for the project. The current Radiology Dept is partly in portacabins and is spread over 2 floors with patient waiting for treatment on corridors”
Cllr Mc Daid said that this is totally unacceptable and is another example of how the government don’t seem to care about the decline in the health services in Donegal.
“The Friends of LGH and people of Donegal has raised €750,000, a huge amount of money with the provision that the government would provide the rest of the funding to build the new Radiology Dept. This failure to provide this new Radiology Department threatens the future of the hospital and is adding to the waiting list problems”.
He said in the lead up now to the General Election the FG and Labour Government at a very minimum must commit funding to this project and a start date should be agreed now.
He added that the waiting lists here in Letterkenny are just ludicrous and very unfair to the people of Donegal.
This project would mean that patients would be seen in a modern state of the art Radiology Dept and would help reduce waiting lists, he said.
“The current radiology department is not fit for purpose, not big enough and is spread over two floors leading to problems treating patients. This hospital needs a fully functioning state of the art radiology dept in order to provide a comprehensive radiology dept for the people of Donegal.
“I am now calling on the Government to provide the funding for this project so that the people of Donegal can be treated with dignity in a modern Radiology Department.”
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