Two buildings on the Daisy Hill Hospital site have been renamed as part of the redevelopment programme to make way for a new £1 million direct assessment unit.
The Nurses Home has been renamed as ‘Bernish House’, and will be the home of a new General Outpatients Department and GP Out of Hours service, which will both relocate from the main hospital building in September.
The former Doctors Accommodation block will now been known as ‘Orior House’ and is the new base for a number of non-clinical services which have moved from the Nurses Home.
The development of a direct assessment unit for the hospital was one of the proposals agreed through the Daisy Hill Pathfinder Project to help sustain and develop unscheduled care services for the population of Newry and Mourne.
Work is progressing to plan for the new unit to open in the current General Outpatients Department in December
Project Director Charlene Stoops said: “We are pleased that work is progressing well on the Daisy Hill site and contractors and staff are doing their best to minimise disruption.
“Renaming the Nurses Home and Doctors Accommodation block was an important element of the project to make sure they better reflect their new purpose and complement the other buildings on site.
“We would like to thank all the staff and community members who helped us to come up with these names which we hope will be meaningful for the local community.
“We ask for the continued co-operation of all staff, patients and visitors to the site whilst we move to the next phase of this ambitious development.”
The project has three main phases:
- July/August – refurbishment of the ground floor of the Nurses Home building (access to other floors will continue and the Boardroom will remain operational).
- September – relocation of General Outpatients Department and GP Out of Hours from main building to Nurses Home.
- December – opening of the new Direct Assessment Unit (in current General Outpatients).
Patients and visitors should follow the signage around the site. Patients will be notified through appointment letters if there are any changes to the location of their service.
