Madam, - We are greatly concerned that the planned new hospital for Temple Street on the Mater site has been blocked at the last minute. It had been due to go to tender in December 2005 with building being commenced in spring 2006. The project has been painstakingly developed over the past six years. It is completely designed, has full planning permission and has ring-fenced funding.
We, the staff at the hospital, are stunned at this major setback to the services that we provide to children. We have been left in a vacuum with no understanding of what is happening to our vital services to children into the future. We as doctors carry a major responsibility for the tens of thousands of children under our care. We find it necessary at this time to act as advocates on their behalf.
The decision not to go ahead with the new hospital was unexpected and without warning. We find this obfuscation very puzzling. Many years of effort and €45 million have been invested in getting the project this far. The new hospital has now been put in jeopardy for no good reason. If it was the right policy for six years, why is it the wrong idea now?
The current Temple Street hospital is 150 years old. It is cramped and unsuitable for the delivery of modern paediatric care. The new hospital had offered a great advance in the care of sick children. It would have represented best international practice with co-location on an adult site. The people of north Dublin have been expecting it to happen. Like us, they will undoubtedly be very disappointed to learn that it is not proceeding.
One tenuous reason being cited by the HSE for the derailment of the new hospital is the setting up of a review of tertiary paediatric services. This is a totally separate matter and has got nothing to do with the provision of safe, clean and modern accommodation for ill children in north Dublin. The building of the new hospital should have proceeded; it should not have been delayed.
It is a straightforward matter. The present Temple Street hospital caters for large numbers of sick children; the new one will be doing the same.
The discussion about secondary and tertiary services is somewhat artificial and continually alters over time with changing needs. What parents seek and their children require is proper management of a specific problem at the appropriate time.
In simple terms secondary care is when a sick child is brought to casualty or is referred by the GP. Tertiary care is when one consultant refers a child to another consultant with greater expertise in a particular disease. Much of the argument comes down to common sense. Any facility catering for a large number of sick children needs both secondary and tertiary care. Indeed, vigilance is needed to ensure that the term secondary care is not used as a smokescreen by administrators for the provision of cheap, poor quality, second-class care.
Temple Street currently provides both secondary and tertiary paediatric care. In the new hospital it is capable of greatly extending its services and specialities for the benefit of children.
If the decision to call off the new Temple Street is not reversed it will be a major lost opportunity for children. Society should be making every effort to invest in children as they are the message that we send to a future that we will not see.
This project was an example of careful long-term planning, a rare exercise in the Irish healthcare system. The time, commitment and effort that have been invested by a dedicated team of professionals in this new hospital are irreplaceable. Its sabotage illustrates all that is wrong with our health service. We had hoped the new administrative structures would have assisted us rather than obstructing us in our plans for the new Temple Street.
We urge the Minister and the HSE to sign the tender and allow the new Temple Street hospital for children to go ahead immediately. There is no excuse for this impasse.
- Yours, etc, Dr JOHN MURPHY, Consultant Neonatologist; Dr ANNE TWOMEY, Consultant Neonatologist; Prof MICHAEL O'KEEFE, Consultant Paediatric Ophthalmologist; Dr BRID O'DONNELL, Consultant Dermatologist; Prof DENNIS GILL, Consultant Paediatrician; Dr VERONICA DONOGHUE, Consultant Radiologist; Dr LIAM CLAFFEY, Consultant Anaesthetist; Dr OWEN HENSEY, Consultant Paediatrician; Dr NICHOLAS EUSTACE, Consultant Anaesthetist; Mr ALEC BLAYNEY, Consultant ENT Surgeon; Ms HELENA ROWLEY, Consultant ENT Surgeon; Mr Frank McMANUS, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon; Dr FRANCIS DONOVAN, Consultant Anaesthetist; Dr EILISH TWOMEY, Consultant Radiologist; Mr MICHAEL EARLEY, Consultant Plastic Surgeon; Dr ATIF AWAN, Consultant Paediatrician; Ms NOELLE CASSIDY, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon; Mr DAMIAN McCORMACK, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon; Dr KAY O'BRIEN, Consultant Anaesthetist; Dr DECLAN WARDE, Consultant Anaesthetist; Dr KEVIN CARSON, Consultant Anaesthetist, Children's University Hospital, Temple Street, Dublin 1.