LGH Outpatients department close to finish

The new interim outpatients department for Letterkenny General hospital is to be handed over to the hospital at the beginning of next month.

The move to the new centre at Justice Walsh Road is part of the service recovery following the flood which struck the hospital in July causing millions of euros of damage.

Management have told staff that the interim outpatients department is to be handed over on Monday, December 2nd. It is hoped that clinics will be up and running as quickly as possible following the completion of construction work.

Out-patient services have been located at sites in Letterkenny and Donegal town. The interim department will allow for the various clinics which are being held at different locations to be held on the one site.

Management says the interim outpatients department will also provide greater patient capacity which will help in seeing the large numbers of patients that are waiting to be seen.

In an update issued to staff on the recovery of services at the hospital, General Manager Sean Murphy said the hospital’s outpatients physiotherapy service is experiencing increased waiting times and waiting lists as it is unable to treat the same volume of patients as before. The service has been affected by the lack of space at its current location in St. Conal’s Hospital. The temporary home for the department has four cubicles but before the flood the department had eight cubicles.

Radiologists from the Letterkenny General Hospital are travelling to Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry to provide radiology services. The staff began travelling to Derry last week to provide the services for patients from the hospital. July.

Reconstruction of the hospitals’s emergency department and the acute medical assessment unit began last week. The work on the two units are the biggest projects in the reconstruction of the hospital following the flood. Both projects will take several months to complete.