Roscommon University Hospital

Roscommon University Hospital
Health Service Executive
Geography
Location	Roscommon, Ireland
Organisation
Care system	HSE
Hospital type	General
Services
Beds	115
History
Founded	1941
Links
Website	hse.ie

Roscommon University Hospital (formerly known as Roscommon County Hospital) serves all of County Roscommon and the surrounding areas. It is situated on the N61 just outside Roscommon town.^[1] It was opened in mid-November 1941 to replace the infirmary at Abbeytown.^[2][3] The hospital was built at a cost of £120,000 and at the time it was built it had "98 beds for surgical and medical cases, in addition to special children's and maternity wards".^[4]

Services

Over its lifetime, Roscommon Hospital has provided a wide range of medical and surgical services, including (but not limited to) dentistry, coronary care, intensive care, surgical prodedures, paediatrics, Accident and Emergency, maternity and psychiatrics.

The Hospital's maternity department effectively closed in 1978 when the Health Board refused to appoint an obstetrician-gynaecologist to the hospital.^[5] However, in the following decades, emergency deliveries were occasionally carried out at the Accident and Emergency Department, where many of the nurses were qualified and experienced midwives.^[6]

In 2011, the hospital's Accident and Emergency Unit closed leading to ongoing political controversy.^[7] The Accident and Emergency Department was replaced with an "Urgent Care Unit", which can deal with certain Accident and Emergency cases; typically any illness or injury not associated with the chest or head.^[8]

Management Structure

In December 2011, it was announced that Roscommon, Portiuncula, Merlin Park and Galway University hospitals were to be merged into a single hospital group, known as the Galway/Roscommon Hospital Group.^[9] In 2014 the name of the hospital group changed to Saolta University Health Care Group. For management and budgetary purposes, they are now treated as a single entity.

References