Growing outrage over nuns owning maternity hospital

ALMOST 45,000 people have signed a petition calling for the Sisters of Charity to be blocked from owning the new national maternity hospital.

The religious order’s ownership, via a healthcare company in which it is a major shareholder, was confirmed by Health Minister Simon Harris on Monday.

This has sparked anger that the nuns could prevent medical abortions and other procedures contrary to Catholic beliefs.

Others have signed because the congregation has yet to pay everything it owes in relation to the redress scheme for victims of abuse at institutions run by religious orders, including the Religious Sisters of Charity.

As of last night, the online petition had attracted 43,655 signatures. The ownership issue also brought up the question of whether during negotiations on the new hospital anybody raised the sum the order owes in the redress scheme.

Yesterday, Kieran Mulvey – who mediated in the talks to secure a deal to move the hospital at Holles Street to St Vincent’s Healthcare Group in south Dublin – said the issue wasn’t brought up because he believed it should be ‘addressed elsewhere in an appropriate forum’.

The petition, which is addressed to the Department of Health, calls on health bosses to ‘Block Sisters of Charity as “sole owners” of National Maternity Hospital’. It can be signed at uplift.ie. Former junior health minister Kathleen Lynch said she did not believe the new national maternity hospital was ‘going in the right direction’.

The former Labour Party TD told RTÉ’s Drivetime: ‘In an era when legislation and people’s expectations about their own lives are changing on a yearly basis, for instance: intersex, gender reassignment, IVF... will all of those things be acceptable?’

Niamh Allen, of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, said: ‘Women must be able to trust their maternity hospital, that they will be treated in a compassionate and non-judgmental way.’