Minister for Health Mary Harney today defended the planned new national children’s hospital insisting it would be a state-of-the-art facility.
The sod is due to be turned on the new hospital at the controversially-located Mater Hospital site by the end of the year with construction due to begin in 2011.
Ms Harney told a Dublin conference the hospital would place “a very strong emphasis on the voice of children and the engagement of children.”
Alluding to criticisms of the project from within the medical profession, Ms Harney admitted there were challenges ahead.
“All of us become creatures of habit. When we’re challenged to do something in a different way … as individuals we often know it’s right, but we find it hard to respond,” she said. “A very important part of the new paediatric children’s hospital is not just the building. The building is the enabler, it is the facility, it will be state-of-the-art.
“But what’s more important than the building, is the people that work in that building, the expertise, how that expertise works together," the Minister said. "That’s not something that can be done overnight.”
Ms Harney was one of a range of speakers at the Children in Hospital Ireland’s European Association for Children in Hospital 2010 Conference, which also included Health Service Executive chief executive Professor Brendan Drumm and Eilísh Hardiman, National Paediatric Hospital chief executive.
Delegates from 13 European countries, Japan and Ireland gathered in Dublin Castle for the day-long event.
Ms Hardiman said the facility, into which the existing three children’s hospitals in Dublin are due to be merged, will be built by the end of 2014. Planning applications are due in July and August of this year, with construction due to get underway by early 2011.
Ms Hardiman forecast costs would be cheaper than the initially predicted €750 million price tag due to the downturn in the building sector and greater competition. Asked if the reduction would be significant she said: “ I think it is, yes. The market has changed so significantly since this was planned and since these estimates were made and it doesn’t look like it’s changing in the next few months by the time we get out there.”
Ms Hardiman said the State has committed €400 million and it is hoped a further €100 million would come from philanthropic donations.
It is planned the hospital will contain 392 in-patients beds, all in single rooms, with facilities accommodating parents who wish to stay overnight. There will also be 81 day care beds, split between the new ambulatory and urgent care centre in Tallaght and the Mater site.
Professor Drumm said the project and change of culture was a “significant challenge” and that “change of this magnitude is huge.”
Small protests were held outside the Dublin Castle event. Rosemary Dwyer, who works with the paramedic staff in Crumlin Hospital said the site of the hospital should be changed to the fringes of the city, close to the M50.
“We can’t give up, right to the very end. This needs to be fought, it’s not the right decision, it’s not the right place for a national children’s hospital,” she said. “It needs an open space where there is room for projected expansion, there is no space at the Mater site.”