Cork Medical Centre

The Cork Medical Centre was a private hospital in Cork, Ireland. It was the first private hospital to open in Cork in 90 years. It was opened by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheàl Martin, TD for Cork South Central on 15 October 2010.

History

The Sheehan family are private hospital developers in Ireland. Dr. Joe Sheehan, Chairman of Sheehan Medical, is an orthopaedic surgeon at the Loyola University Health System. In the 1970s Dr. Sheehan set up the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin with his brother Dr. Jimmy Sheehan and in 2005 developed the Galway Clinic, also in Ireland.

The new €90m hospital had a focus on advanced surgery. There were 6 operating theatres, 102 in-patient beds and 550 jobs were planned to be created.^[1][2]

It was announced that funds had been fully secured for the hospital.^[3]

It was later announced^[4] that Sheehan Medical, the hospital's operators, had signed a €750,000 deal with Boston company MEDITECH to supply their integrated health care information system to the new private hospital. This was MEDITECH's third Irish deal with Sheehan Medical after previously supplying the system to their other hospitals the Galway Clinic and the Blackrock Clinic.

Aviva health insurance were announced to be the first Irish private health insurer to cover the new hospital.^[5]

Closure

The clinic was closed on 9 March 2011.^[6] The reason for the closure was said to be the failure by the operators to reach an agreement with the insurer, VHI. KPMG was appointed as liquidator in May 2011.^[7]

References