For Louis Roden, a father of two children with cystic fibrosis, the news that a new children's hospital is to be built in Dublin was more a source of relief than celebration.
Standing in a small garden at Crumlin’s Children’s Hospital on Thursday, Roden said he had gone through 14 years of “hard slog lobbying”, appeals and vested interests to see the hospital get the green light.
“We met every politician in the country,” he added.
Officials had gathered in Crumlin to mark the fact that a new hospital providing world class medical care and facilities for patients and their families is a step closer. One of the most highly anticipated elements is the capacity for parents to stay comfortably with their sick children.
“You can see the zombie parents walking the corridors at night time,” said Mr Roden. “This will do away with all of that. There will be a bed for the parent in the room with the child.”
Families do not just attend children’s hospitals, he said, they often live in them.
“No parent will leave their seriously ill child. They will do anything. I have seen parents asleep in the corridor outside the door. I have seen a parent asleep in the car this morning.”
‘Better quicker’
Marian Connolly, directorate nurse manager of the children's department in Tallaght Hospital, said Tallaght, a more modern hospital, encouraged parents to stay.
"It's vital," Ms Connolly said. "Children get better quicker once their parents are there."
She described “shouts of joy” in the corridors at news the new hospital will go ahead on the St James’s campus in Dublin but there were questions too, particularly around parking.
Many of those travelling from the country would not like to contend with getting a Luas to and from their cars, she said.
“It is an issue and something will have to be done about it. Unless they build a specific multi-storey car park somewhere and that there will be shuttle buses as they do in other cities.”
The three children’s hospital chief executives all welcomed the granting of planning permission.
Helen Shortt of Crumlin said a brand new hospital "built to best international standards, from an infection prevention and control point of view, from the technological advances that we will be able to benefit from, is wonderful news for us."
Twenty-year wait
Mona Baker, chief executive of Temple Street, said it was the culmination of a 20-year wait. "We have always said to our parents we want better conditions for them. This decision today gives them better conditions."
Thirteen-year-old Ashleigh Kiernan, who first attended Crumlin six years ago after being diagnosed with leukaemia, welcomed the news.
"It was a bit squished. I was in the old part of St John's Ward, " she recalled. Patients were often moved around to make space for sicker children who need to be treated in isolation.
“I think the [NEW]single rooms would be a big thing, especially for the teenagers for more privacy.”
Ashleigh can remember being brought in a wheelchair to a bathroom down a corridor whereas the new facility will have private facilities.
The new facility will be “more homelike,” she said.
