CUH children’s unit gets go-ahead

A new 80-bed state-of-the-art children’s unit has been approved to replace substandard paediatric accommodation at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

The new unit will include single ensuite rooms, a significant improvement on the existing 73-bed facility where even the isolation rooms housing children with compromised immune systems are not ensuite.

The project has been approved in principle by the HSE’s national capital steering group and the next step is to secure funding. The unit will form phase 2 of a three-phrase development of the children’s unit.

The news will be welcomed by paediatric staff at the hospital who have repeatedly highlighted the inadequacies of existing accommodation and have called for it to be flattened.

However phase 2 as it stands will not include new paediatric operating theatres to allow the regional centralisation of paediatric care to CUH as per the blueprint for reconfiguration of acute services, and as recommended by the National Children’s Hospital Group and the National Clinical Programme for Paediatrics.

Instead the new theatres are likely to be part of a separate “phase 3” development, which will require a separate submission to the capital project steering group.

Phase 1 of the development is due to start next April. This comprises of a two-storey extension over the existing unit to include a new out patient area, new day unit, new haematology/oncology unit and academic area (funded by University College Cork).

Staff at the hospital are hopeful that capital funding for phase 2 will be released in time to allow the building of phase 1 roll into phase 2. This would remove the need for children decanted from the unit while building work is under way to have to return to the old, substandard accommodation.

Yesterday the HSE said phase 1 was expected to be completed by September 2016. It said while phase 2 has been recommended as appropriate for funding, it would have to compete with other capital funding demands and national development priorities.

However should funding become available, construction of phase 2 will commence on completion of the first phase, the HSE said.

Last February, junior health minister Kathleen Lynch told the Irish Examiner that funding of €11m had been earmarked for the development of the new children’s unit at CUH. This was more than double the circa €4.5m which had been available up to then towards phase 1. Ms Lynch said the additional funds opened up the possibility of an entirely new build.