Rotunda boss: We are stuck here until 2027
Despite Varadkar’s 2020 vision, 260-year-old maternity hospital faces extra decade in city centre
THE Rotunda could be stuck in its city centre location until 2027 – seven years after the date given by Leo Varadkar for three Dublin maternity hospitals to be relocated.
Two years ago, the Government suggested a date of 2020 at the earliest for three maternity hospitals to move and co-locate with general hospitals.
The three – which account for about 40% of Irish births – each face different challenges, with the National Maternity Hospital move almost derailed last year over issues of ownership.
Fergal Malone, who has five years remaining as Master at the Rotunda – and previously said he hoped to complete the move in his term – told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I think it is unlikely now it would be complete within five years. It might be closer to ten years. I don’t think it is realistic that I will be the one cutting the ribbon.
‘There is only so much capital funding to go around, the entire Capital Plan can’t be ring-fenced for health.’
One of the challenges facing the Rotunda-Connolly Hospital partnership is the shortage of certain medical specialities at the Blanchardstown campus. Mr Malone praised the location and easy access to the site, but said funding is needed for clinical change.
He said: ‘What would be unacceptable to us from a risk perspective would be if we were out on the Connolly campus and still had to transfer critically ill mothers all the way back to the Mater. That would be almost [a] dis-improvement in services.
‘It’s currently unclear how much development will happen, and where exactly it will happen [on the campus].’
Connolly Hospital is a Model Three hospital, and it has been recognised that development is needed. Mr Malone said this includes increases in intensive care capacity, and in specialities like vascular surgery and interventional radiology, all of which are relevant to maternal health.
Mr Malone said: ‘It’s hard to describe it as a step forward if you have to put a patient in an ambulance and send her from hospital One to Two, or from one part of the campus to another.
‘Most people [define] co-location as typically being within 250m, with some sort of covered walkway, tunnel or corridor where you can wheel the patient from one segment of the hospital to another.’
The upgraded campus will host a new paediatric outpatient and urgent care centre to be linked with the new children’s hospital. Work began on this last month.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said the development control plan will be finished next year. He said the new 10-year national investment plan for 2018–2028 will be published next month, but details are not yet available of where funding will go.
The first babies were born in the Rotunda building in 1757, making it the oldest functioning maternity hospital in the world. Now faced with another decade in the city, the board has made plans for construction work beginning in January.
A three-storey extension to its rear will provide another operating theatre, a labour ward and extended emergency department. It’s expected to cost up to €5million.
The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is also in need of extensive re-wiring which Mr Malone described as ‘a gut job’. This is expected to cost about €1m.
Meanwhile, the move between the National Maternity Hospital and St Vincent’s appears to be back on target. There was outrage at the prospect of nuns owning the new hospital. This was addressed with an independent board proposal.
‘It’s hard to describe it as a step forward’