The new Primary Care Centre in Fermoy is scheduled to open in early December.
News of the long-awaited opening comes in response to a Parliamentary Question lodged by Cork East TD James O’Connor to the HSE at the start of November, in relation to the return of the physiotherapy services to the Primary Care Centre at Mill Island.
The Fianna Fáil TD welcomed the news of the imminent opening of the new state-of-the-art facility for Fermoy and surrounds.
“This is great news for Fermoy, that services – including Paediatric physiotherapy and occupational therapy services, Dietetics, Podiatry and Public Health services – will all return to the new Fermoy Primary Care Centre when it opens.
It will mean that the people of Fermoy will not need to travel outside of their town for some important services,” Deputy O’Connor said.
RELOCATION OF SERVICES
According to the response to Deputy O’Connor’s parliamentary question from Cork/Kerry Community Healthcare, the southern arm of the HSE, it is anticipated that the centre will open in December 2022 so services can commence at the centre.
HSE Estates are currently completing the fit-out of the building and are presently awaiting delivery of some essential equipment.
“The new Primary Care Centre in Fermoy in CHO 5 (including Fermoy, Mitchelstown and Castlelyons) will house a number of services that are currently provided from a number of locations across that network. When the Primary Care Centre is opened, a number of these services will relocate,” the HSE statement said.
CURRENT ARRANGEMENT
Currently, paediatric physiotherapy service for Fermoy is provided each Tuesday, Wednesday and every other Thursday in the Children’s Services Building, Market Square, Mallow; and adult physiotherapy services are provided daily in Mitchelstown Livinghealth.
Paediatric occupational therapy service is currently provided in the children’s services building, Market Square, Mallow and adult occupational therapy is provided in Livinghealth, Mitchelstown.
Also, both adult and paediatric speech and language therapy is provided in Mitchelstown Livinghealth, while dietetics is shared with other networks and a service is provided one day per week in Mitchelstown Livinghealth.
Podiatry is also currently shared with other networks and this service is provided from the SouthDoc building in Fermoy.
The public health nursing wound clinic for Fermoy is currently also provided from the SouthDoc building in Fermoy, while other public health nursing services are provided from Fermoy Health Centre.
All of the aforementioned services will be moving to Fermoy Primary Care Centre once it opens.
“The new Primary Care Centre in Fermoy is coming at a welcome time, especially when there is an announcement imminent from Government regarding the location of the new elective hospital in Cork,” Deputy O’Connor added.
