Let’s get it right on children’s hospital

The hysteria which has greeted the planning decision on the National Children’s Hospital, places us all in danger of a knee-jerk populist and partisan reaction leading to decisions as flawed as those which have got us “here” on this issue.

What we need are calm and cool heads and a joint, non-adversarial approach by all stakeholders.

We need prudent planning of the necessary expenditure, which is likely to be considerable at a time when, quite correctly, the Government says it has to watch every penny.

Put aside for the moment the knocking of the proposals from Irish critics. Shelve the opinion of the former chairman of the hospital’s development board who resigned because he believed that those proposals would not work regardless of “where the hospital was built”.

In Opposition, both Labour and Fine Gael promised to commission an external and “independent” review of those proposals.

Health Minister James Reilly implemented that promise quickly, but there were in fact two quite separate reports.

One, carried out by construction consultants identified by the HSE, gave the nod to the Mater location.

The other — quite separate “clinical” report — was made by the CEOs of four of the top global children’s hospitals on the planet. They manage paediatric hospitals to the highest standards on a 24/7/365 basis.

They identified no less than 14 issues, some of the most basic kind, which required urgent review — before the current proposals went ahead. Because of certain “fuzziness” and “conflation” in drafting, the report as spun seems to give the totality of those proposals unqualified approval. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Do not take my word for it.

The report is on the HSE website and it can be read by anybody and everybody.

Nobody who has been involved in the provision of children’s hospital healthcare, (even on a lay voluntary basis, as has the undersigned), questions the principle of a single unified structure, (but not necessarily a campus).

Indeed, we might know better than most just how important reform, re-structuring, and new investment is.

Our children and grandchildren are dragged constantly, (and sometimes cynically), into the political argument.

Nobody who has had a sick, frightened or injured child literally in their arms, can regard this issue as a frivolous or trivial one.

But this is a very complex project — and a very expensive one, no matter how we do it.

We need to get it absolutely right this time.

Maurice O’Connell

Fenit

Tralee

Co Kerry