Death of a child, shame of a nation

COLLECTIVELY, the Government should hang its head in shame.

Cabinet ministers must bear a large measure of blame for the circumstances leading to the tragic death of two-year-old Róisín Ruddle, who was sent home to save €1,000.

Róisín’s parents had to take her home from Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin when doctors were forced to cancel heart surgery due to a shortage of intensive care nurses, caused by financial cutbacks in the health service.

The most frightening aspect of this disaster is that it could happen again.

Surgeons have warned, and the Minister for Health and Children, Micheál Martin, has conceded, that the hospital’s problems will continue until it has a full complement of staff and all of its theatres are in full use.

Conditions at the country’s main hospital for children are appalling.

Because there are no overnight facilities, parents often have to sleep on the floor beside their children’s beds.

Because there are no consultation facilities, surgeons and parents are forced to discuss life and death questions in the corridors.

The cardiac “unit” is scattered across several areas of the 50-year-old complex.

No criticism of the Government’s failure in this catastrophic situation could be more damning than that voiced by Professor Brendan Drumm, who yesterday condemned the lack of any plan whatsoever for Ireland’s paediatric service.

Nationally, its development is haphazard, without an iota of planning. When investment is made, it happens in a planning void.

Clearly, in the face of such scathing criticism, both Mr Martin and Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy, who has a stranglehold on the purse strings, have serious questions to answer.

According to heart surgeon Freddie Woods, who was due to operate on Róisín, one-third of cases seeking

admission to intensive care have to be refused because of a lack of facilities.

While the hospital’s 21 intensive care spaces have been fully equipped since 2000, only 13 or 14 are available because of the staffing crisis.

Approval for extra staff was given in 2001 and again last year, but intensive care nurses could not be found, due to conditions at the hospital and also because nurses are not paid enough for this highly demanding and extremely stressful work.

A ban on recruitment, forced by financial cuts, means that if 30 nurses were hired, 30 others would be let go. In the end it comes down to money.

The appalling tragedy of little Róisín has devastated the nation and focused attention on a situation, which concerned parents have been highlighting for years, in a vain bid to get Health Ministers to resolve the crisis.

The minister says €30 million was invested to resolve the capacity problem, but the fact remains that the Burns Unit at Crumlin was built on the back of corporate donations. Moreover, the Government put no funding into a new Cystic Fibrosis unit.

Since an external review of facilities was sought three years ago, nothing has happened. Inexplicably, a committee examining the intensive care issue for the Eastern Health Board is specifically excluded from

dealing with the question of intensive care for children.

Róisín’s death is a damning indictment of this Government’s health service, where life can be forfeit for the sake of €1,000.

No gravely ill child should have to wait for an operation. It is scandalous and terrifying.