Hospital funding - Sick children deserve top priority

There is nothing more effective to tug on the heartstrings of the Irish public than a picture of the suffering of a sick child, especially if that child’s illness is treatable. It does not seem to make a different if it is the image of a child in Africa, Asia or Latin America.

So, nobody should be surprised that eight out of 10 adults support the idea of providing more money for Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, or that a clear majority of people think that the hospital should have priority in medical funding. But it is appalling that the sickest Irish children those suffering from leukemia, cancer and cardiac problems are treated in a substandard hospital.

Consultant haematologist Owen Smith has been complaining that outdated conditions at the hospital, which was built more than 50 years ago, are similar to those found in Eastern Europe around the time of the collapse of communism.

Children receiving chemotherapy, which suppresses the immune system, have to share toilet facilities with other sick children. To reach the nearest toilet they often have to go out in a corridor, where they are being exposed to all kinds of infections. Sick children certainly deserve better.

Last year, 123,729 sick children were treated at the hospital, but as many as a third of the patients listed for admission to the intensive care unit had to be refused admission. Operations are frequently cancelled because of a lack of nurses.

This was tragically highlighted recently by the death of two-year-old Róisín Ruddle, who died within hours of her scheduled heart operation being postponed due to lack of adequate nursing staff.

Maybe young Róisín would not have survived anyway, but she deserved the chance at least.

Our Lady's Hospital was recently upgraded with new operating facilities at a cost of €30 million, but other facilities are woefully inadequate.

For instance, part of the treatment for children undergoing chemotherapy involves taking bone marrow, which is stored and then re- infused into the children later. The marrow of up to one hundred children is being stored in a Portakabin.

If the Government can afford to contribute money for the rebuilding of Croke Park so that the GAA can provide corporate facilities, surely it can provide the money for the proper treatment of sick children.

Last year, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern opened a new national burns unit at the Crumlin hospital even though all the money for the project was raised by voluntary effort and corporate donations.

Inviting the Taoiseach to perform the official opening was probably designed to remind him of the need to fund the running of the unit. He should be mortally ashamed now if the proper funding is not provided, not just for the burns unit, but also for the whole hospital.

Any government that cannot provide for sick children the most vulnerable people in society does not deserve to be called such.

Health Minister Micheál Martin has been showing commendable courage in defending the planned implementation of the smoking ban in public houses and this hospital issue affords him another opportunity to demonstrate real leadership.