HSE backtracks on plan to replace hospital unit

HSE PLANS to replace an outdated child intensive care unit described in a report as “a potential risk to patient safety” could be scrapped due to budget cutbacks.

The Irish Examiner has learned that HSE officials have written to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin in recent days seeking to significantly downgrade plans to revamp the unit.

Under a HSE-backed report commissioned from Deloitte and Touche at the start of the year, an existing 13-bed intensive care unit at Crumlin Hospital, which had been in place since the 1950s, was to be replaced as a matter of urgency.