Children’s hospital decision needed

The report documenting avoidable deaths of children in the care of the Department of Health/HSE over the last decade brings shame on us all and must bring renewed focus on the proposed new National Paediatric Hospital (NPH).

The ‘National Model of Care for Paediatric Healthcare in Ireland’ states that this hospital is “the core component of an integrated healthcare system for Ireland’s children”. The cut-off age for the new NPH is to be 16 years, yet many of the children who died in care were in the later years of adolescence.

In 2006, the McKinsey report on children’s hospital services analysed only the needs of 0-16 year olds. Why? Because “patients [in Ireland] aged 16 and above were generally treated as adults”. The report therefore only classified under 16 year olds as “paediatric”.