A COMMUNITY hospital will have £1.5 million pumped into it to prepare for thousands of new patients.


Abergele Hospital is in the middle of a major overhaul which will see the Ophthalmology facilities in HM Stanley in St Asaph relocated.


Health staff were keen to reassure patients from St Asaph that the eventual departure from HM Stanley building, which the board said was ‘not fit for purpose’ did not spell the end.
 

“Patients are concerned it’s a closure of HM Stanley,” said Lorraine White, nursing sister at HM Stanley.
 

“It isn’t.
 

“It’s a relocation and an upgrade.


“It will be the same staff and services in a different building.
 

“Generally everyone is a little nervous about a change after so many years.
 

“A lot of staff have been there (HM Stanley) for 15 to 20 years.


“It’s quite a wrench, but it means we are going to get some better facilities for patients.


”We will be sad to go because there’s a lot of happiness at HM Stanley.
“We have a fantastic reputation to uphold.”


The Abergele Hospital building program, which is estimated to last about six months, will see the introduction of new day case theatres, wards and a macular treatment centre.


Robin Wiggs, head of planning at the Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board, said: “What we’re doing with the site is ensuring it has a long term clinical future.
 

“There was a lot of concern for a number of years that Abergele is a site we didn’t want to invest in, but that is not the case.”


Currently the hospital, which was opened a hundred years ago as a sanatorium, caters for 2,000 orthopaedic inpatients and day cases annually.
 

Roger Haslett, clinical lead for ophthalmology at HM Stanley, said: “The long term plan for orthopaedics is as soon as the asbestos is cleared up at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Bodelwyddan, the facilities will be moved there.


“In Abergele, the theatre site will be much improved.


“The ophthalmology facilities in HM Stanley were 50 years old.


“So many things needed refurbishing it would have cost quite a lot.”
 

A spokesman from the independent health watchdog, the Betsi Cadwaladr Community Health Council, said the group would monitor the progress on site until the services were fully operational.


He said: “The CHC looks forward to seeing the excellent service already provided, being transferred to significantly improved accommodation.”


u Meanwhile a £110 million redesign will bring the latest standards in medical treatment to Glan Clwyd Hospital.
 

The wide-reaching revamp will see a new emergency unit set up and wards redesigned.


Dr Eileen Williams, clinical lead for the redevelopment project, said the starting point was to look at how services would be delivered and how best to deliver care to patients.


The key principles were delivering a high quality clinical care, improving safety and making sure the project suited the needs of the most vulnerable in society.


Dr Williams said: “Instead of it just being an A&E, where people come in for treatment and then go up to wards upstairs, they will now come into the emergency department where there is a ward for medical emergency patients.


“There’s a ward for surgery emergency patients as well as coronary care for people with heart attacks, and the GP out of hours is all part of it.
 

“It’s all core located, and means that all the emergency doctors are all in the same place on one floor.”