Hospital may be put on graveyard

There are plans to build a new hospital building on a cemetery site

A public consultation will be held into plans to exhume hundreds of bodies from a graveyard in Omagh in order to make way for a new hospital building.

Health Minister Michael McGimpsey said the Western Health and Social Care Trust was handling the issue as sensitively as possible.

"Every respect is being given to those patients who died and were buried on the site," he said.

An exploratory exercise will take place towards the end of the summer.

However, DUP assembly member Tom Buchanan said the trust should look for another site.

"I think it is a real shame that the trust should even contemplate moving in to disturb this site to build a new hospital."

"There is plenty of (other) ground in that area where the hospital could be built," he said.