CAMPAIGNERS FOR cystic fibrosis (CF) sufferers will meet the chief executive of St Vincent’s hospital, Dublin, to discuss interim treatment measures pending completion of a delayed specialist unit.
The contract for the unit is expected to be signed next week. But even if building commences immediately without further hitches, the 30-35 bed unit will not be ready for use until mid-2012.
Ongoing concern has been exacerbated by proposed major budget cuts and lack of clarity about whether the unit – scheduled for completion this year, then next and finally 2012 – would actually be again delayed.
The issue was raised in the Dáil again this week in the wake of media coverage and Labour health spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan highlighted the case of one woman who “was asked to take part in a photograph on the site of the new unit when she was 18. She is now 31 and not a sod has been turned.”
Minister of State for Health John Moloney said “while it might sound a bit hollow, the building of the new ward block at St Vincent’s hospital is a priority for the Government given that we are making the case and the tender is imminent”. A spokesman for the hospital last night confirmed that “agreement has been reached by all parties to sign the contract in the middle of next week as planned”.
The 30-35 bed specialist unit will form two-storeys of a new 100-bed five-storey €20 millionplus block.
A Health Service Executive spokeswoman said the executive had allocated the funding for the unit, the board had approved it and the signing of the contract was a matter for the hospital and the developer.
Long-time campaigner Orla Tinsley who became involved in 2005 said the unit “is so important because people are prone to cross-infection” and are particularly vulnerable to infection from other CF sufferers. Ireland “has the highest rate of cystic fibrosis in the world and could be the world leaders in dealing with CF but we’re not”.
In any other country patients don’t have to go through A E and immediately go into single ensuite rooms for treatment, she said. “Conditions have improved in the past couple of years and not everyone has to go through A E now” but she said there were only eight dedicated single rooms in the hospital and “there are 20 to 30 CF patients there at any one time”. However “staff have to decide who deserves the single rooms more and that is so much pressure for them”.
The Cystic Fibrosis Association is hopeful that building work will start because developer John Paul Construction is already involved in a project at the hospital.
Association chief executive Philip Watt said they will meet hospital chief executive Nick Jermyn shortly to discuss interim measures for cystic fibrosis sufferers.
Mr Watt said considerable progress had been made with the clearing of the site.
He said however that a four-bed unit at Our Lady’s hospital in Crumlin would be opened in the next four weeks as would a new out-patient facility at Beaumont Hospital, both done mainly through fundraising by parents.
