Galway hospital car park that cost €5.4 million and resulted in fewer spaces to be demolished

A €5.4 million multi-storey car park at University Hospital Galway (UHG), which resulted in 80 fewer spaces than the surface car park it replaced, is set to be completely demolished – just 10 years after it was built.

It’s part of a masterplan for the redevelopment of the hospital campus that will see certain services permanently transferred off-site to a location in Knocknacarra at a cost of €25 million.

However, the clearance of the controversial multi-storey car park is set to be complicated by the presence of asbestos and unregulated medical waste buried beneath the building, internal documents reveal.

The 238-space parking facility will be completely flattened to make way for a seven-storey acute clinical block under the plans, which will house a new emergency department, operating theatres, and surgical inpatient wards.

The building will also provide 54 intensive care and high-dependency beds, along with a rooftop helipad and underground car park. However, ground surveys have flagged significant environmental hazards under the existing facility.

A geo-environmental review commissioned by the HSE refers to a site investigation that discovered buried hospital waste, asbestos, and residual peat and ash from the hospital’s former peat-fired boilers.

Consulting engineers have warned that material excavated from the site cannot be disposed of as ordinary soil, and will require specialist treatment or transfer to a licensed hazardous waste landfill.

The redevelopment of the UHG campus will involve the permanent transfer of central catering, laundry, storage, and maintenance workshops to a former commercial building in Knocknacarra.

The unit will also house over 1,200 square metres of dedicated outpatient clinical accommodation and administrative offices.

The relocation of catering will finally end the hospital’s reliance on kitchen facilities in a 20-year-old hired prefab located behind the Nurses’ Home at UHG, which has been blighted by food safety, capacity, and structural issues.

The move is expected to take place over a 41-month period leading up to September 2029, according to internal documents.

While the masterplan provides for two 500-space underground car parks at UHG, it acknowledges that parking capacity will drop significantly during construction phases, necessitating expanded park-and-ride services from Merlin Park.

It refers to a previous parking survey that calculated peak demand for spaces at the hospital at 1,850 vehicles, while the current capacity is 1,419. This results in unauthorised parking on footpaths and ramps, as well as double parking in the multi-storey car park itself, the documents state.

A spokeswoman for the HSE said the plan represented the largest ever investment in healthcare infrastructure in the region, and a doubling of clinical services at UHG is required.

“This is a long-term programme of work which sets out a phased expansion and reform of the hospital to meet projected healthcare demand to 2045,” she said.

“This will require decanting non-clinical services off the campus to make space for new clinical buildings. It will also ensure that support services are adequately sized and scalable to meet future demand.”