Madam, – In Roisin Healy’s letter (June 23rd), she asks that the decision to locate the National Children’s Hospital at the Mater (NCHM) site be reversed.
For the past seven years, The New Crumlin Hospital Group has been lobbying for a new children’s hospital. The new hospital is finally due to open its doors in 2014.
We absolutely believe the last thing the sick children of Ireland need is any delay to these plans.
In July 2007, in response to the initial proposal to site the hospital on Dublin’s Eccles Street, we sought independent professional advice on the suitability of the site and the overall proposal. We commissioned the international expert in strategic health planning, Dr Ronnie Pollock to carry out a review and advise us. When asked: “Can the new hospital on the proposed Mater site, provide the international standard of excellence in tertiary healthcare for our children?” Dr Pollock responded: “Yes, it most certainly can. The synergy created by assembling some of the best clinical and research skills in the country on a single site will create the environment for Ireland to progress further in international standing with measurable benefits for both children and adults”.
Anyone who has experienced the frighteningly outdated conditions in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children Crumlin can have no doubt that urgent action is necessary. We are not prepared to allow the sick children of Ireland pay the cost of political wrangling and we insist they are given the health service that they deserve in the shortest possible time. Dr Pollock has said that if the present proposals are not acted upon, the healthcare of the seriously ill children of Ireland may be set back by 30 years.
Ms Healy writes of the rights of children. We in the NCHG consider the rights of the sick children of Ireland as paramount. We fail to see how she and others opposing the approved plan for the new hospital can allow the children of Ireland to continue to suffer substandard conditions.
We would suggest that to delay the development of decent tertiary care for them is a denial of their rights to the care they so desperately need and rightfully deserve.
We firmly believe that the focus must now be on the establishment of the real time frame that will see the hospital open and fully functioning by 2014. The reports and reviews have been done. We as a country cannot afford to spend more time and money to delay the provision of proper healthcare to our sick children. – Yours, etc,