BY HARRY WALSH
THE state-of-the-art €22 million new Emergency Department at Letterkenny General Hospital (LGH) is due is re-open before the end of March despite a setback this week.

It emerged that the construction of a new culvert to divert any future flood water away from the hospital buildings has been delayed.

A planning decision, which had been due yesterday, will now be further delayed as the planning application must be re-advertised.

Letterkenny Town Council had sought further information from the hospital’s engineers and their response led planners to deciding that the application needs to be re-advertised in light of “significant new information”.

The new storm drain network is required to prevent a repeat of the disastrous flooding episode last July which affected up to 40 per cent of services at the hospital.

While the hospital has already settled insurance claims, believed to be in the region of €30 million to €35 million, they also have to satisfy the insurers that they have put in place measures to alleviate the possibility of flooding happening again at the new ED site.

It is understood that a substantial percentage of the insurance money, up to one third, will be withheld until the new storm drain is in place.

The welcome news comes at the end of a week which saw patients being treated on trolleys in corridors for the first time in more than fifteen years due to overcrowding.