Hospital deal should not be thrown away

WHAT a mess. The proposed move of the crumbling National Maternity Hospital to a state-of-the-art building on land beside St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin is now in jeopardy, the sorry result of another conflagration in the battle over the separation of Church and State.

Worse, the entire project is now threatened as a result of misinformation and wild conjecture that has left the religious order at the centre of it, the Sisters of Charity, understandably bruised.

The principal objection to this project was voiced earlier this week by the former Master of the National Maternity Hospital Dr Peter Boylan, who raised strong concern that treatments in the new hospital would be influenced by the Catholic ethos of the religious order.

Others railed against the ‘fact’ that the sisters allegedly still had to pay €3m to the State, owed as part of their reparations for historic abuse. Some have asked why the State cannot just compulsorily purchase the site and build the hospital itself rather than ‘gift’ a €300m hospital to the order. Today, we reveal that the debt owed by the Sisters of Charity as payment for historic abuse has, in fact, been paid.

Also, we now learn that the Sisters of Charity, far from wanting control over a maternity hospital, resisted the move from the start. It was the State itself that insisted the NMH move there, partly because of the close links between the two hospitals that already exist, but mostly because it is best practice for maternity hospitals to be co-located with general hospitals. The deal, which involved compromise on both sides, was not easily secured. But it is remarkably pragmatic, and, because it does not involve lengthy compulsory purchase litigation, meant the hospital could be built within a reasonable timeframe.

Religious interference was explicitly excluded. The current Master of the NMH, Rhona Mahony, is emphatic that the nuns have no say whatsoever in the management of the hospital. Dr Mahony is an enlightened professional whose testimony to Oireachtas committees on abortion has been welcomed by many of those now protesting, so it seems perverse that they should doubt her when she points to the ‘triple lock’ of independence in the medical practice.

Dr Mahony was undermined by the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, who did himself – and women – no favours by engaging in complex arguments initially on Twitter, and then by overtly insulting the Sisters of Charity by saying he will, in effect, get the head of the HSE to sort them out.

If – and unfortunately it is now a big if – the move goes ahead, it will mean that the new maternity hospital will be built where it should be built and within a timeframe that will be of use to this generation of young women.

There is a reasonable desire that the Church and religious orders should be expunged from many areas of Irish life. But if you are going to knock a supporting wall, you have to be prepared for the house to cave in. Although if you are careful, with engineering and patience, you will achieve the desired result.