‘There was no more they could do for Sophie here, she had to go to Sweden’

New report shows growing strain on paediatric critical care units in both Temple Street and Crumlin hospitals

The mother of a critically ill girl who had to be airlifted to Sweden for advanced life-support not available in Ireland is backing a new report calling for better services for children facing life and death struggles.

Ciara Swan from Naas, Co Kildare, revealed how in late 2022, her then threeyear-old child Sophie had to be rushed to Sweden from Temple Street Hospital’s paediatric intensive care unit after developing life-threatening sepsis.

Staff who were battling to save the child had said “there is no more we can do for Sophie” and her only option was to be flown to Sweden for specialised extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment, in which a machine takes over the work of the patient’s lungs and heart.

Her mother said: “On December 11, 2022, our lives were turned upside down in the space of 24 hours when Sophie went from being a healthy, happy girl to extremely sick and fighting for her life.”

After seeing a GP she was taken by ambulance to Tallaght Hospital where sepsis was suspected and she was transferred to Temple Street Hospital’s intensive care unit and placed on a ventilator.

“She deteriorated further while on maximum support and was in multi-organ failure. The team were doing everything they could,” Ms Swan said.

“When we were told of the ECMO treatment we knew it was Sophie’s only chance of survival. At 3am we said our goodbyes to Sophie at the doors of the ambulance taking her to Stockholm.”

The parents booked flights to Sweden and kept vigil for days as the treatment saved their daughter’s life.

Scans showed bleeding in Sophie’s brain, which is one of the risks of the treatment. She was transferred back to Temple Street intensive care where she turned four on Christmas Day.

Sophie was in intensive care for another eight days before being moved to a ward and starting her rehab journey, learning basic functions like how to walk and sit up, before also being treated in the National Rehabilitation Hospital.

She suffered brain damage but is doing very well and her family are proud of her courage and determination.

“We are very grateful for getting Sophie to Sweden, but further lives could be saved by having the facility here,” Ms Swan said.

“We will be forever grateful to the wonderful people who kept her alive.”

Children in need of ECMO treatment for heart support can be treated here, but those with lung failure may have to go abroad. Six children needed ECMO treatment for their lungs in 2021 and 2022, a number of whom had to go to Sweden.

Ms Swan was speaking as a new audit report today highlights the growing strain on the paediatric critical care units in Temple Street and Crumlin children’s hospitals. During the winter they are running at 100pc occupancy, taking care of more children than they normally have beds for.

The report from the National Office of Clinical Audit on the critical care units in 2021 and 2022 warns of the urgent need to recruit staff in advance of an expanded unit to open at the new National Children’s Hospital next year. The new hospital will have 42 beds – 10 more than available currently.

The audit shows the growing pressure on existing units with 3,329 admissions in the two years, up 14pc in 2018.

Emergency admissions accounted for 67pc of cases in Crumlin and 73pc in Temple Street in 2022.

Record levels of RSV in recent winters have also led to more children falling seriously ill with breathing difficulties.

Respiratory illness admissions went up from 18pc to 30pc in Crumlin and 24pc to 39pc in Temple Street in 2022 compared with 2020.

The mortality rate remained steady at 4pc and is on par with other centres with 75pc of deaths in Crumlin in infants under one year.

Staffing levels at Temple Street fell below the recommended 5.5 whole-time equivalent (WTE) nurses per bed each year from 2018 to 2022, averaging around 4.84 in 2022.

High numbers of children need complex care and this requires adequate nurse-patient ratios. A significant number of admissions are very young babies of less than 29 days old.

In 2021 to 2022, 11 infants and children from two days old to 15 years of age donated organs or tissue.

Dedicated hospital organ donation personnel should be appointed to increase awareness of organ donation and to ensure opportunities are not missed, the report said.

Professor Martina Healy, clinical lead of the Irish Paediatric Critical Care Audit, emphasised the critical need for strategic planning and resources.

“The data clearly indicate an urgent need for a detailed workforce plan to facilitate the opening of the new national children’s hospital’s paediatric intensive critical care unit,” she said.

“This plan must address the recruitment and retention of paediatric critical care consultants, trainees and nursing staff to ensure the unit can operate at optimal capacity.

“Our findings show that adequately staffed and skilled units deliver significantly better outcomes for patients.”

There are 27 candidates running in the massive Midlands-North West European election constituency, which spans from Donegal to Galway to Kildare.

The sitting MEPs are: Fine Gael’s Maria Walsh and Colm Markey, Independent Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan and Sinn Féin’s Chris MacManus.

Mr Markey is the only politician to have said he is not running again.

Celebrity candidates

The constituency has its fair share of star-studded candidates.

Champion jockey Nina Carberry is running for Fine Gael and is the daughter of former jockey and trainer Tommy Carberry. She was Ireland’s amateur champion twice and one of the most successful amateur riders in the jumps sphere.

Ms Carberry rode more than 400 winners, including seven at the Cheltenham Festival and recorded her biggest success when she won the 2011 Irish Grand National.

She is on the Fine Gael ticket alongside former Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh, who is running for a second term.

Ms Carberry also took part in Dancing with the Stars and was a judge on Ireland’s Fittest Family.

Also coming from an RTÉ background is Ciaran Mullooly, who was midlands correspondent with the broadcaster for many years. Despite being mooted as a possible Fianna Fáil European candidate in the midlands area, he is instead running as a representative of Independent Ireland, a new party set up by TDs Michael Collins and Richard O’Donoghue, later joined by Michael Fitzmaurice.

Mr Mullooly finished up with RTÉ in 2021 and later took up a role with Longford County Council.

Another familiar talking head hoping to be elected is housing lecturer and author Rory Hearne. A lecturer in Maynooth University, he has been a fierce critic of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s housing policy. He has previously described politicians in the two parties as being “anti-intellectual”.

The disputed leader of the National Party Justin Barrett is also in the running. The far-right politician got embroiled in a high-profile spat with the party which led to gardaí confiscating €400,000 worth of gold bars.

Mr Barrett had claimed that the gold was removed from the party’s vault by another member without permission. He said the gold was held in case of a collapse of a “fiat” currency, one backed by a government.

There has also been dispute over whether Mr Barrett is still the leader of the party. His rival, James Reynolds, has also claimed to be the leader and accused Mr Barrett of allowing the party to “go to seed”. Mr Barrett has branded him an “idiot”.

Mr Reynolds is also running as a candidate for the National Party in this constituency. Former journalist John Waters is another well-known name on the ballot paper. He was an outspoken campaigner against Covid-19 restrictions imposed by the Government and has been described as a conspiracy theorist.

Former Green Party member Saoirse McHugh is running too. She contested the last European election as well as the last general election unsuccessfully.

She left the party after it entered the coalition government in 2020 with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. In a recent RTÉ debate, she branded constituency rival Peter Casey a “clown”.

Fianna Fáil’s big gamble

Fianna Fáil is running three candidates in the five-seat constituency. The chances of all three candidates winning a seat is highly unlikely. Offaly TD Barry Cowen is being viewed as the vote-getter most likely to secure a seat. He has been delegated the midlands to canvass votes, while Senators Lisa Chambers and Niall Blaney are viewed as less likely to be poll-toppers, with Ms Chambers canvassing the west and Mr Blaney the north of the constituency.

‘Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín has said he will run again to keep his Dáil seat if he is elected as an MEP. His list shows his sister Emer is listed as the first candidate to potentially replace him’

One Fianna Fáil politician in the area has branded the decision to run three candidates as “silly”.

The party argues that geographically, it makes sense to run three candidates – with Mr Cowen in Offaly, Ms Chambers in Mayo and Mr Blaney in Donegal, they all have hundreds of kilometres to cover between them.

Mr Cowen declared himself as the “lead” candidate as he was elected by the membership, while his two fellow party candidates were added to the ticket by the party. This enraged Ms Chambers.

However, latest polls now have increased optimism within Fianna Fáil that there could be a second seat up for grabs. The Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll brought Ms Chambers in at number four, giving two seats to the civil war parties and incumbent Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan taking top spot.

Ms Chambers is viewed as being the party’s most likely chance of winning this second seat.

Meanwhile, Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín has said he will run again to keep his Dáil seat if he is elected as an MEP in Midlands-North West.

His replacement list shows his sister Emer Tóibín listed as the first candidate to potentially replace him – followed by Patrick Murphy, Paul Robert Lawless, Luke Silke, Gráinne McPhillips and Brandon Scott.

Sinn Féin are running two candidates – incumbent Chris MacManus and Michelle Gildernew. Mr MacManus’s voting record in Europe has previously been at odds with the party’s record in Ireland.

He voted against adding the violation of sanctions to a list of serious crimes at EU level, despite the party voting for it in the Dáil.

He also voted against the legislation committing EU member states to restoring 20pc of its land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems by 2050. However, a split appeared to emerge within the party after Lynn Boylan – who is running for the Dublin European seat – hailed the passage of the law as “great news” on social media site X.

Ms Gildernew, who is an MP and previously a Stormont minister, said she will not be running to keep her seat in Fermanagh-South Tyrone in the July 4 UK general election.

Rule of the Independents

Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan is seeking his third term as an MEP and polls suggest he is likely to get it. In 2014, he was elected alongside Marian Harkin, who is now a TD, with Independents then holding two of the four available seats.

He is an outspoken Roscommon MEP who says he has batted for farmers on the European stage. He also fared relatively well in a televised debate on RTÉ earlier this week, hammering home his role on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Interestingly, he doesn’t support an extension of the nitrates derogation, a contentious issue for many farmers. “The way I look at the nitrates derogation is, prove to me that it’ll work and then I’ll support it. I haven’t been given any proof at the moment,” he said at the debate.

Former presidential candidate Peter Casey is also running in the constituency. Despite previously saying he would run in the 2025 presidential election, he told the RTÉ debate “at the moment” his decision is to commit “totally to Europe”.

He has called for a moratorium on accepting any asylum-seekers for six months and for the International Protection Office to be temporarily shut.

In 2018 when running in the presidential election, he said Travellers should not be recognised as an ethnic minority because they are “basically people camping in someone else’s land”. The other Independents running in the constituency include: Dr Gerry Waters, Michelle Smith, Daniel Pocock, Charlotte Keenan and Stephen Garland. Other candidates include: Anthony Cahill of The Irish People Party, Hermann Kelly of the Irish Freedom Party, Margaret Alacoque Maguire of Ireland First, Brian O’Boyle of People Before Profit, Senator Pauline O’Reilly of the Green Party, and Fergal Landy of Labour.

Forecast: 1. Barry Cowen, Fianna Fáil; 2. Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, Independent; 3. Nina Carberry, Fine Gael; 4. Chris MacManus, Sinn Féin; 5. Ciaran Mullooly, Independent Ireland

‘In 2018, he [Peter Casey] said that Travellers should not be recognised as an ethnic minority because they are “basically people camping in someone else’s land”.’