Children's hospital campaigners in plea over life-saving minutes

Campaigners opposed to the closure of Tallaght’s children’s hospital today counted the live-saving minutes it takes to travel to its new proposed site.

Protesters argue the distance to the Mater Hospital on Dublin’s northside, particularly on public transport, is an unnecessary hardship to inflict on children who may be sick and in pain.

Three Sinn Féin representatives trekked between the sites by road, bus and tram – taking an estimated one hour and 16 minutes each to complete the journey.

Dublin South-West TD Sean Crowe said the scheme highlights the problems that will result for south Dublin families if vital medical services are taken out of Tallaght Hospital.

Mr Crowe travelled by Luas into Dublin and walked to the Mater in 1 hour 32 minutes, while Cllr Mark Daly drove by car in 54 minutes, and Cllr Cathal King took the 77 bus to the city centre and walked to the Mater in 1 hour 21 minutes.

“There is no reason why Tallaght Hospital needs to be downgraded and the Children’s Hospital shut down if the new hospital is to go ahead at the Mater,” said Mr Crowe. “The closure of Tallaght and Crumlin will strip the southside of both children’s hospitals.

“The National Children’s Hospital in Tallaght saw 67,221 patients last year, almost thirteen hundred a week. They will be forced to trek into the city centre and will be joined by the thousands of other patients from Crumlin Hospital.”

It is planned that within the next four years Dublin will have a major new acute Adult and Children’s Hospital in Eccles Street known as the Mater and Children’s Hospital Campus.

The massive scheme will include extending and developing the current Mater Misericordiae Hospital and the transfer of all three Dublin children’s hospitals to a new 380-bed state-of the art facility.

A mum who claims her young son’s life was saved by the proximity of Tallaght Hospital to her home today backed the campaign to keep it open.

Teresa Egan believes Jake would have died from meningitis when he was 13 months old if they had travelled to a larger, busier hospital across the city centre.

“The doctors in Tallaght hospital saved Jake’s life,” she said.

“He didn’t have all the normal symptoms for meningitis and it never showed up in an initial test but they kept him in overnight for observation. During the night his organs began to shut down one by one.

“If we had have taken him to a bigger hospital it would have been busier and they wouldn’t have kept him over night. He would have died.”

For the 18 months after the illness in March 2004, Jake was plagued with reoccurring ear infections, developed pneumonia and was struck down with a superbug that infected his skin.

“We were back and forth to the hospital for a year and a half,” the 33-year-old mother of three continued. “We couldn’t have kept making those journeys to town, especially if we were going on a bus.”