A new mother and her baby from Roscrea, Elliot Mulryan and his mother Samantha, are amongst the first to benefit from a new neonatal extension and refurbishment project at University Maternity Hospital Limerick.
Encompassing a two-storey extension and refurbished clinical space, the unit completely transforms the neonatal environment for critically ill and premature babies, their parents and neonatal staff at UMHL.
Completed in two phases over the past five years with no interruption to NICU care, the project, cost €9.7m and has attracted international attention with Ms Silke Mader, founder, and Chair of the Global Foundation for the Care of Newborn Infants from Germany visiting last week.
Many non-clinical spaces in the original neonatal unit, including parents’ accommodation, a lactation centre, a clinical engineering unit, and support facilities for staff and admin teams, are now housed in the two-storey extension. This has freed the space for the refurbishment and expansion of cot space in the intensive care, high dependency, and purpose-built isolation areas.
The project is among a number of initiatives being undertaken to improve services at the Maternity Hospital pending the eventual relocation of the maternity hospital to the University Hospital Limerick campus in Dooradoyle.
