THE MANAGEMENT of St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin has said it will have signed the contracts to begin construction on the long-awaited new Cystic Fibrosis special unit on the site of the hospital in South Dublin.

The new national referral centre for patients with cystic fibrosis – who need to be kept in isolation when admitted to hospital, as they are particularly susceptible to picking up viruses from other patients – has been promised for some time.

The facility, which was originally intended to be open by the end of 2010, was delayed in part because the initial builder who had agreed to construct the facility had pulled out, according to RTÉ.

A second construction company, John Paul Construction, is to step in – with the agreements, worth over €20m, to be finalised this week.

Work was to begin immediately on the site, with the construction of the 35 en-suite bedrooms expected to take all of 18 months.

The development comes after a series of discussions on RTÉ radio’s Liveline last week revealed that construction on the project was due to begin tomorrow, October 15, but that it would be unusual for construction to begin on a unit within two weeks of contracts being signed.

The current facilities in St Vincent’s – where adult CF patients are required to share wards with other patients, many of whom have serious physical or mental illnesses – have been almost universally criticised by CF sufferers, especially given the fact that under-18s are given individual bedrooms in facilities elsewhere before having to transfer to Vincent’s.

There are about 1,300 CF sufferers in Ireland, with Irish people four times more likely to develop the condition that others in the EU.