Temple Street Children's Hospital might have been able to assist in freeing up intensive care nursing staff in Crumlin hospital to allow heart surgery to go ahead on a child but was not asked, it emerged yesterday.
Temple Street had free beds in its intensive care unit on Monday when the two-year-old girl's operation was postponed at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin.
Heart surgery on Róisín Ruddle was cancelled because of a shortage of intensive care nurses in Crumlin to care for her after her operation. As a result she was discharged home to Kilfinny, Adare, Co Limerick, where she died within 24 hours.
The director of nursing at Temple Street, Ms Rita O'Shea, said yesterday that while the hospital could not have cared for a child after heart surgery - the national cardiac centre for children is in Crumlin - it might have been able to facilitate a transfer of another child from the intensive care unit in Crumlin to free up staff, who would then have been able to care for Róisín.
There was no contact between the two hospitals to establish if any patient in intensive care in Crumlin could have been transferred to Temple Street.
Mr Freddie Wood, the consultant cardiologist in Crumlin who was due to operate on Róisín, said that whether a patient could be transferred or not depended on individual cases.
"You have to remember when a transfer takes place the whole team care changes, so the nature of the case that would be transferred would have to be similar to what Temple Street would deal with, and then you would have to explain that to the family concerned in Crumlin and get them to accept that it's in their interest to transfer to another hospital," he said.
The Irish Nurses' Organisation called for immediate talks between the two hospitals on co-ordination of services.
However, relations between the Dublin children's hospitals have not been good in recent years. It emerged earlier this year that a "turf war" between them has resulted in a much-needed consultant post remaining vacant for seven years.
Meanwhile, the child at the centre of this controversy will be buried today. When contacted yesterday her family said they did not wish to comment and appealed to the media to respect their privacy and give them space to grieve.
A report ordered by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, was still being completed last night.
The Children's Rights Alliance called on the Government to adequately fund children's healthcare services. It said the Ruddle case showed the extent to which children were being placed in and left in jeopardy.