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Consultant haematologist Owen Smith has been complaining that outdated conditions at the hospital, which was built more than 50 years ago, are similar to those found in Eastern Europe around the time of the collapse of communism.