Hospitals object to Mater site for children’s hospital

PLANS to locate the new national children’s hospital at the Mater Hospital in Dublin are in doubt after two major hospitals raised concerns about how the decision to recommend the site was reached.

As the Cabinet meets today to decide on the recommendation, both Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children and St James’s Hospital, both in Dublin, are insisting that the issue must be deferred until it is independently reviewed.

Labour Party health spokeswoman Liz McManus said Health Minister Mary Harney should respond to the concerns expressed by the hospitals by having an early review of the process that led to the decision to locate a tertiary children’s hospital at the Mater.

“It may well be that this is the best decision, but serious concerns have been raised which need to be addressed,” she said

Both St James’s and Our Lady’s hospitals have written to Ms Harney to express their concerns.

Our Lady’s Hospital insists that the e400 million capital project cannot be compromised by using the speed at which the project can be developed at the Mater as the sole criterion.

The hospital also argues that there is no transparency in the way the decision was reached and also raises questions about the ease of access to the site by road and whether adequate car parking will be provided.

St James’s Hospital said the process by which the task force reached its conclusions was “fatally flawed”.

It says the site at St James’s is four times bigger than the Mater site and that clinical and academic services at St James’s were not properly considered.

The hospital, which has called for an international peer review, says such a review could be conducted in four weeks’ time.

The location of the new facility that will merge the existing three children’s hospitals in Dublin was chosen by a task force made up of representatives from the Department of Health, the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Office of Public Works.

The group’s decision was endorsed by the HSE’s board last Thursday night and the following day, HSE chief executive Professor Brendan Drumm insisted there was no political influence in the decision to locate the new hospital at the Mater.

The HSE says the decision to recommend the Mater site was based on several factors relating to the current location of clinical services around the city and the speed with which the children’s hospital could be developed.

A spokesman for the HSE said the recommendation was very detailed and comprehensive.

“This process has been open and transparent from the beginning and we have made it quite clear as to how we arrived at our conclusions,” he said.

He said the HSE’s priority has always been to build the best possible hospital for children as soon as possible and felt that the choice of site would enable them to do just that.