‘Sad day for sick children’

A father who campaigned for 10 years for a new national children’s hospital said his hair was “now half grey from fighting for it”.

Chairman of the New Crumlin Hospital Group, Louis Roden, who is from Dublin, used to attend Crumlin Hospital with two of his children who have cystic fibrosis.

“We have been in existence 10 years, lobbying for a new children’s hospital to be built anywhere the experts told us to. We have met three ministers for health and we are still waiting,” he said.

Mr Roden said the children of most members of the group had grown up, and those who still needed medical care had moved to adult hospitals.

He said An Bord Pleanála’s decision to turn down planing permission for the new hospital was a sad day for sick children in Ireland who should get the best possible care.

“We have already been told that if we have three children’s hospitals operating in sub-standard facilities they aren’t getting the best care,” he said.

Mr Roden felt it was the height of the proposed hospital at the Mater site that was the main problem and said everything should be done to get around it.

He added there was nothing Dr James Reilly, the health minister had done to date that he would disagree with.

“He appointed a review group to examine the site and I met that review group and their pedigree was phenomenal. He gave them four weeks to deliver a judgement and they did.

“The minister did everything he could have done and then he acted on it and said it was the right site. That was the third group of international experts that said it should be on the Mater site.

“How many more groups of experts do we have to go back to?”

Mary O’Connor, chief executive of Children in Hospital Ireland added: “Staff in our current stretched and inadequate children’s hospital facilities will continue to struggle to provide a 21st century service in 20th century buildings not suitable for a modern health service.”