Care centres for children to open before new hospital

TWO urgent-care centres are set to be opened in Dublin ahead of the National Children’s Hospital, i t emerged yesterday.

The new satellite hospitals are likely to be based on the southside and northside of the capital but health chiefs have yet to decide the locations.

Eilish Hardiman, chief executive of the Children’s Hospital Group, said the two care centres would be in place before the €650million National Children’s Hospital is completed.

Ms Hardiman said: ‘We are doing all the planning so they [the urgent care centres] are in place, and it has to start before the hospital.’

The care centres are expected mostly to handle urgent but less serious cases of sick youngsters.

The main children’s hospital will on a single site encompass services at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin, Temple Street, and the paediatric service at Tallaght Hospital.

The hospital is to be built near St James’s after planners rejected a proposal to build the facility at the Mater in Bertie Ahern’s former constituency. Work on the children’s hospital is due to start in spring 2015 for completion by 2018.

Mona Baker, the chief executive of Temple Street Children’s Hospital, said the two urgent-care centres would be based in Dublin but regional centres may be established in the future.

Ms Baker said the population distribution meant one centre had to be to the north of city and the other to the south. ‘St James’s is the hub and they will be the spokes,’ she said.

James Reilly said the children’s hospital would serve generations of youngsters and was a priority.

The Health Minister said: ‘By merging the three Dublin children’s hospitals into a single large facility and co-locating with a major adult teaching hospital, the new children’s hospital will operate like other leading children’s hospitals across the world.’