The West/North West Hospitals Group has a new name, Saolta University Health Care Group, unveiled last week at the Group’s second annual conference.
Introducing the new name, Maurice Power, designated acting Group Chief Executive stated, “Each of the new hospital Groups was mandated to agree a new name and we are very pleased to introduce ‘Saolta’ as another step in our journey from a hospital ‘Group’ to a hospital ‘Trust’.
The new identity will be implemented across the Group’s constituent hospitals (Galway University Hospitals, Portiuncula Hospital, Roscommon Hospital, Mayo General Hospital, Sligo Regional Hospital and Letterkenny General Hospital ) over the coming months.
He said that “working with Ann Cosgrove, and her team at Galway University Hospitals, we look forward to introducing Saolta as our new group identity. We envisage that each of the individual hospitals will maintain its local identity but that through the Saolta identity they will be seen as part of a single cohesive unit within the Saolta Group,” said Mr Power.
“We wanted to create an identity that was a new departure so that we could then breathe our own life into it in line with our objectives. We agreed on a visual that is positive and dynamic and captures the idea of people moving together and supporting each other.
“Saolta, as most people will know, is most commonly understood as the plural of the Irish word, ‘Saol’/‘Life’ and we feel the word captures what a health service is about.
“When we started this process some months ago we wanted to devise a name for our group that would not be defined geographically to allow for maximum flexibility in the configuration of Groups into Trusts and that the name (or strapline ) should include the word ‘university’. We also wanted to ensure that the word ‘Group’ could be seamlessly replaceable by the word ‘Trust’.
“We were also cognisant not just of legal requirements but that within our catchment we have almost 85% of the Gaeltacht population,” he said.
