Fit children kept for days in hospitals is ‘scandalous’

MORE than 100 healthy children were kept for days and sometimes months in three cash-strapped Dublin hospitals last year because there was nowhere else for them to stay.

The situation has been called a scandal by welfare activists. Many of the children were taken to the hospitals after being removed by gardaí from crisis homes, others were the offspring of pregnant or newly-arrived asylum seekers.

Most were kept for a number of days but a source at one of the hospitals said children have been kept for a number of months. Many of the children have behavioural problems.