of a comprehensive and readily available range of acute and general hospital services.

This was not only her department’s main aims, but the mandate from successive governments of the Isle of Man.

Starting in 1991 when the hospital was first mooted, and then in 1997 when Tynwald made funds available for the building of the new hospital in one central facility on a new site.

The new hospital had not been built at Westmoreland Road as this would have meant an estimated disruption of services of up to ten years whilst work was carried out.

However in the final analysis it was found that the Westmoreland Road site would have been unable to sustain a hospital of the magnitude that had been envisaged for the Manx people and that was now a reality.

So it was decided to start afresh in a totally new site and the first sod was cut on 15th October 1997.

However, the planning conditions stipulated that the planting of the environmental surround had to be in place before the building of the new hospital could commence.

When asked how the new hospital compared medically with other hospitals across the water, Mrs Christian felt that comparisons on a one to one basis would be difficult.

Nonetheless, it was in a class with any district general hospital for a similar population catchment in the United Kingdom.

She emphasised that the coming to fruition of the facilities at the new Noble’s was an enormous leap forward in the medical delivery for our Island people.