Fears that Portiuncula University Hospital would lose its maternity and emergency department services were allayed this week.
There was growing concern in the Ballinasloe area that these services would be moved to the new public hospital planned to be located on the 150 acre Merlin Park Hospital site.
However Tony Canavan, the chief executive of the Saolta University Health Care Group, which runs the west's public hospitals, reassured the public that their fears were unfounded.
He said there were "no plans" to change either the emergency or maternity services at the Ballinasloe based facility.
Speaking at a recent meeting of the HSE West's regional health forum he outlined that the Saolta options appraisal report highlighted the "critical importance" of continuing to develop capacity across the other hospitals in the Saolta Group.
"Portiuncula University Hospital is progressing the development of a 50 bedded replacement ward block and the pre-tender stage is completed for this project.
"In addition, we are at the tender stage for the development and upgrade of Radiology Room 3 which will facilitate the replacement of fluoroscopy [a type of medical imaging which shows a continuous X-ray image on a monitor, like an X-ray movie] and the provision of interventional radiology on this site. It is envisaged that this project will be completed in 2020."
He went on to say that there are plans to progress the new emergency department project on the UHG site and this will incorporate a replacement women's and children's unit for UHG.
"This will allow the transfer of the services in the existing facilities on the UHG site to this building."
