New decontamination unit at Cappagh

A NEW

?¬5 million Central Decontamination Unit was officially opened at Cappagh National Orthopaedic Hospital on April 11 by former Government minister, Mary O’Rourke.

The new unit is the first of its kind in Ireland and is capable of providing commercial decontamination services to the wider healthcare industry as well as to Cappagh Hospital itself.

The new unit is funded by the HSE, the Cappagh Hospital Foundation and Zehnacker Ireland Healthcare through a joint venture agreement.

It’s the latest development at the Finglas hospital which in recent years has completed a number of major developments including new theatres, a 10 bed isolation unit and the purchase of a hi-tech 3 Tesla MRI unit.

The new decontamination unit was constructed to be fully compliant with European standards, ISO standard 13485 and HSE standards for the decontamination of invasive medical devices that were introduced in 2011.

That means all medical devices processed in the new unit are decontaminated to the most current Irish and European requirements.

The latest development at Cappagh is another major step in the hospital’s infrastructural plan to ensure its patients have access to the best possible care using the most current equipment and processes

The new unit is commercially managed by Zehnacker Ireland Healthcare to provide fully accredited, HSE and European standard compliant decontamination services to the Irish Healthcare Industry.

The unit was specifically developed to allow other healthcare facilities avail of the decontamination process, a concept which is common in most European healthcare settings.

Experts say this sharing of facilities and services has the potential to ensure a better quality service to patients and reduce the overall cost of decontamination.

Speaking at the official opening of the unit, John O’ Carroll, CEO of Zehnacker Ireland Healthcare said:

“Zehnacker Ireland Healthcare is happy to be associated with Cappagh from conception to final construction of this new facility.

“We see the practice of sharing state-of-the-art facilities between hospitals as the cornerstone for ensuring quality and achieving cost savings.

“This has been the experience of healthcare organisations internationally, including our parent company in Europe.

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Cappagh is the country’s national tertiary referral centre for both adult and children’s orthopaedics. A total of 24 consultant orthopaedic surgeons confer and work together to deliver a highly specialised and efficient service in the hospital.

The hospital manages a cohort of highly specific bone tumour cases, is a harvest centre and distributor of bone graft nationally and provides advanced rehabilitative services to patients from both the Mater hospital and Connolly hospital.

Cappagh also carries out elective orthopaedic surgery for six adult and children’s hospitals in the east including Beaumont Hospital, St James Hospital, Temple Street and St Vincent’s University Hospital

It’s a major teaching institution with undergraduate and postgraduate training facilities in medical, surgical anaesthetic and nursing programmes in conjunction with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University College Dublin and Dublin City University.

It has 157 beds for adults and children. On average it carries out approximately 3,000 major patient operations, 8,000 minor operations and 12,000 out-patient reviews annually.