Latest award is 2009 hattrick for St. Francis Hospital

It's not always just troubles that come in threes - but good things too, judging by Mullingar's St. Francis Private Hospital, which to date this year, has won a prestigious Chamber of Commerce business award, a FÁS "Excellence Through People" award, and most recently, has earned its coveted CHKS accreditation.On Friday night, staff enjoyed a party in the hospital canteen to celebrate this latest success, and warm words of thanks and congratulations were conveyed to the staff by Jack Taaffe, the former County Manager of Westmeath who is chairman of the hospital's board of management.The CHKS accreditation - an internationally recognised quality assurance mark - was awarded to the Ballinderry hospital in June, after a long period of rigorous preparation, and implementation of the highest standards."It takes a long time to get this. There are a lot of procedures and paperwork and standards to be put in place," said Mr. Taaffe, adding that acquiring the standard was necessary to meet the requirements of the hospital's insurance company.Spot checks were carried out by officials from CHKS as part of the hospital's assessment, he revealed, demonstrating the level of scrutiny to which the hospital was subjected as part of the assessment process.Regional superioress, Sr. Cecelia, said staff at the hospital were delighted to have received the accreditation, and Friday's party was a way of thanking them for the hard work that had gone into making the hospital's efforts to attain the standard a success.Noeleen Sheridan, general manager/director of nursing at the St. Francis Private Hospital was thrilled over the hospital's success."The acreditation process covers all aspects of healthcare provision, organisational development and support, and external reviews," she said, adding that the award recognised the efforts of the hospital to promote excellence in the quality of the services and customer care.Set up 41 years ago, the St. Francis Private Hospital has grown from a fledgling nursing home to a 120 bed private hospital, with a wide range of facilities to cater for medical, surgical and outpatients."The hospital has gained a reputation for dedicated compassionate qualty care of patients, delivered through personal nursing care from skilled and professional registered nurses and trained friendly ancillary staff," said Ms. Sheridan.There are 60 acute beds at the hospital, 43 nursing home beds in St. Clair's Nursing Home on the hospital grounds, 4 theatres, a lab, an ultrasound and dexa scanning facility; a pulmonary unit, a sleep unit, a radiology department, physiotherapy section, dietetics, day care and consultants' clinics, a pharmacy and a chapel, as well as a separate consultants' day care clinic in the grounds (The Ballinderry Clinic).