Sorry, Eddie Hobbs, but St James’s is the right location for a world-class children’s hospital
WE All want the best for our children. Yet, in 2017, we still have suboptimal conditions in some of our children’s hospitals. Parents are forced to sleep on the floor when spending the night in hospital with their sick child, staff are working in buildings that date back to Victorian times, and both children and parents are travelling between several hospitals for different aspects of their treatment.
It is a decade since the decision was made to build a single children’s hospital and now, finally, we are about to start construction on this muchneeded and wanted facility.
My clinical colleagues and I want the hospital to be built now as we know how much these sick children and young people will benefit from having all the paediatric expertise they need under one roof.
In addition, we shall be on the same campus as Ireland’s leading acute, adult, researchintensive hospital – st James’s Hospital – and the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital will be relocating to the campus.
This ‘tri-location’ of services for adults, children, newborns and their mothers is internationally considered to be best practice.
We shall be best placed to provide safe, high-quality care as a result of having the clinical expertise from the three hospitals together on one campus.
The decision to locate the new children’s hospital on a campus shared with st James’s Hospital was made in 2012 following a series of reports and wide consultation. In April 2016, after a long and thorough planning process, An Bord Pleanála granted planning permission for the hospital as well as two new paediatric outpatient and urgent care centres at Connolly and Tallaght hospitals.
We are now weeks away from starting the main construction work. Everyone involved in the development of the new children’s hospital is totally committed to building a hospital in which the highest quality of care can be delivered to the children and young people of Ireland, and to their families. This is an investment in our children who make up 25% of the population.
THE hospital will be superb: it will have 473 beds and each inpatient room will have an ensuite bathroom and a parent bed. It will have a total of 6,000 rooms including state-ofthe-art theatres, diagnostic equipment and intensive care units along with an extensive range of clinical rooms and day care facilities. There will be dedicated spaces for families and parents to relax, do work or exercise during a difficult time. There will also be four acres of outdoor space and 14 gardens as requested by parents.
A new Children’s Research and Innovation Centre and a 53-bed family accommodation facility will be also constructed on the campus shared with st James’s Hospital. The new children’s hospital, along with the regional paediatric units in limerick, Cork and Galway and the 13 local paediatric units, will work together to deliver the new model of care for paediatric services. This will see children receive the right care, at the right time in the right location and, where possible, close to home.
Most paediatric care in Ireland is delivered locally and currently only 22% of the children attending the three children’s hospitals in Dublin are from outside the greater Dublin area.
The proposed transformation in the delivery of paediatric services in Ireland does require a significant investment. The details of the cost will be considered by Cabinet in the coming weeks and, until then, they are not available for public disclosure.
The lack of available detail has not stopped public speculation, including that of Eddie Hobbs in this paper last week. Mr Hobbs’ suggestion that the hospital cost is €2m per bed is factually incorrect. He also stated in the article, pictured below, that parents will ‘have to compete’ for parking with the staff. Of the planned parking area, there will be 675 car parking spaces dedicated for use by families only. This is three times the parking currently available at the three Dublin children’s hospitals. Mr Hobbs may not be aware of this.
Mr Hobbs does not refer to the fact that the paediatric medical community is unequivocally behind the location of the hospital on a campus shared with st James’s.
As THE people working at the coalface, we know that co-location with an adult hospital like st James’s is critical and not a ‘fake argument’ as Mr Hobbs claims.
For example, in a country of Ireland’s size, there is not sufficient specialist work in sole paediatric practice to enable many clinicians to maintain their skills and expertise. For this reason, specialists in areas such as cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, dermatology, orthopaedics and ENT will generally work with adults as well as children.
st James’s Hospital provides the broadest range of adult clinical subspecialities and national specialities, and this will support the highest quality care at the new children’s hospital. It was for clinical reasons that st James’s was identified by the Dolphin Group as the best adult hospital for co-location.
staff from the three children’s hospitals are working tirelessly to integrate services in preparation for the opening of the new children’s hospital in 2021.
We have the right location and we have planning permission. soon we shall have a children’s hospital which our children, our future, deserve and a hospital in which our highly-valued staff will be proud to work.
Emma Curtis is a consultant paediatrician at the National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght, and medical director with the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board.