Waterford Minister Mary Butler says she’s confident the extended cath lab operating hours at University Hospital Waterford (UHW) will commence this month.

As reported last week, eight to eight cover seven days a week is on track to commence from March 18th.

Speaking to WLR in Dungarvan on Friday, Minister for Mental Health and Government Chief Whip Mary Butler said she had discussed the matter with UHW General Manager Ben O’Sullivan earlier that day.

“He informed me, as he had three weeks ago, the ‘go live’ date is expected to be March 18th,” she said.

“He was very clear that once this service goes live there is no going back.”

Minister Butler said some final negotiations with unions took place and all the necessary recruitment has been completed.

“It ran a little bit slow as three posts had to be backfilled,” she explained.

“When you’re recruiting the clinicians required to deliver this service, you want to get the right people doing the right job and sometimes it takes a while.”

Minister Butler added: “The good news is that I’m 99 per cent confident it will be March 18th”.

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