Madam, – It is now evident that many highly respected members of the medical profession, including eminent paediatricians, are strongly opposed to the proposed location of the new national children’s hospital on the Mater hospital site.
Serious criticisms that have been raised remain unanswered ie: 1. Access to the new hospital site is seriously flawed, 2. The size of the site will compromise the function of the proposed hospital. Because of the small site, a further substantial, second structure is planned in a location distant from the Mater, to enable routine surgical procedures to be performed on children. So, instead of a single national hospital, we get two! Consider the significant difficulties of ferrying sick children to and from these two sites.
When the proposal for a new children’s hospital was mooted, it was specifically indicated that this should be located on the site of a large adult teaching hospital. Hence, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin was specifically excluded from the bidding process. Thus, the argument could never be made that the existing Crumlin hospital site might be the ideal location for our new national hospital. However, I believe that the Crumlin site is an ideal location and it makes both financial and medical sense to continue to provide national paediatric care for our children there.
I am not persuaded that a national paediatric hospital needs to be located on the site of a large teaching hospital and I note that several of your letter correspondents are of the same opinion. The current Crumlin hospital site is large, exceeding by fourfold the proposed Mater site. Moreover, several of its recently developed structures could be readily incorporated into a new hospital. Finally, its location allows easy access to all national roadways and to the citizens of the capital.
I believe the proposal for the Mater site to be a serious error. For the sake of our children and the generations to follow, I would urge the politicians sponsoring the new children’s hospital, as well as those involved in its development, to display genuine courage and take account of the serious disquiet that the current proposal has caused and to reflect and ask – is this in the best interests of the sick children of the nation?
We do not need to be reminded of the many poor economic decisions that have been made in the last decade. Let us not add to these further, by constructing a costly paediatric hospital in the wrong location.
I wish to disclose that I serve as a committee member in the Research Centre in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin. – Yours, etc,