Recession should not halt move, says Master of Coombe

THE RELOCATION of the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital to a greenfield site in Tallaght should proceed despite the recession, the master of its hospital has said.

Dr Chris Fitzpatrick said a new hospital could be built on the existing Tallaght hospital site within five years which would be better able to cope with its catchment area in southwest Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow.

A KPMG review of maternity and gynaecology services in the greater Dublin area, which has been seen by The Irish Times, has already endorsed the proposal.

The Coombe envisages the move as part of a collaboration with St James’s Hospital, Tallaght hospital and Trinity College Dublin to form a Trinity Academic Medical Centre.

The model is based on the development of academic-medical centres which are common in the United States and will see clinical staff become part of the formal academic structure.

Dr Fitzpatrick declined to reveal a figure for the proposed move, but a similar proposal to move to St James’s Hospital, which was shelved in favour of Tallaght earlier this year, was costed at €160 million.

Dr Fitzpatrick said the cost of a new hospital facility could be offset by the €46 million which will have to be found to upgrade the existing Coombe site and also by the eventual sale of that site which is about five acres off Cork Street in Dublin.

The site was valued last year, but the valuation has not been made public. At the height of the property boom in 2006, a 1.4 acre site nearby sold for €30 million giving an approximate valuation for the Coombe site of €100 million, though it is likely to be a lot less now given the collapse in commercial property values.

Speaking at the launch of the Coombe’s annual report, Dr Fitzpatrick said he was confident that an argument could be made for a new hospital in a “value-for-money context” and he was also confident that the value of the Coombe site would bounce back by the time the hospital was ready to move.

He said the board were looking at every possible efficiency to justify the move including cutting down on design costs by looking at similar models abroad and looking at the best way of sharing staff and services.

“In terms of academic synergies, we think co-locating on to an academic medical centre would be the way forward,” he said.

“There is some argument to be made for supporting the building industry at this particular point in time. The big investment in infrastructure must continue.”

The hospital had a record number of births last year. In total, 8,497 children were born there in 2007, an increase of 5 per cent on the 2006 total of 8,084 births, itself a record.

Figures produced by the hospital showed the perinatal (between 22 weeks gestation and seven days after birth) mortality rate was 4.6 per 1,000, the lowest ever recorded at the hospital.

A total of 22 per cent of births were by Caesarean section and the number of teenage mothers has declined from 6.1 per cent of births in 2002 to 3.9 per cent last year.

Dr Fitzpatrick said he wanted to get the level of Caesarean sections below 20 per cent.