Sir, – It’s increasingly clear that any review of the cost overrun at the new children’s hospital must look at the decision to locate it at the St James’s site, who drove that decision, and for what end.
Additionally a grown-up conversation needs to take place over whether, given the massive cost overruns, it is even worth continuing at the St James’s location. If taxpayers’ money is going to be spent on the most expensive hospital in the world, it is not unreasonable to expect a world-class hospital in return. If it is possible to build a far superior hospital in a more cost-efficient manner at an alternative greenfield site, then simply continuing on with work at James’s in order to justify the sunk costs already incurred is not acceptable. Ultimately it is taxpayers’ money being spent, and the Government, and the Opposition party supporting it, both have an obligation to now consider all options. – Yours, etc,
RUARY MARTIN,
Sandyford,
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Dublin 18.
Sir, – I write in support of Prof Brendan Drumm regarding dismay at the spiralling cost of the new National Children’s Hospital (“Spiralling building costs mask other issues with children’s hospital”, Opinion & Analysis, February 2nd).
As it is proposed, the project is out of all proportion to need, to the national economy, to its physical environs and to the state of the health services generally.
Nevertheless the plan powers ahead into financial catastrophe, driven only by vanity: a train wreck in slow motion.
This is not a Luddite view. A new high-technology children’s hospital should be built. It should be integrated into a major general teaching hospital. Only such an institution can cater for highly complex cases: so far so good. But why on such a grand scale? Indeed the aerial view of the proposed edifice (newchildrenshospital.ie) is more than a little evocative of the Bertie Bowl epoch and its attendant follies and euphoria. Eventually we settled for the Aviva – more than adequate.
The children of the nation will not be cherished equally by this centralised extravagance: indeed it seems a strange priority when so many of them are homeless and in care.
Most children’s health problems – medical, surgical and general – do not require resort to such an expensive place. A much smaller but highly specialised entity could equally act as a resource and hub to paediatric units and excellence nationally.
The hospital as proposed, however, will be filled not with speciality but with generality following the proposed closure of other Dublin units.
But Dublin is not Ireland. Ability, or indeed willingness, to deal with, for example, common mid-level surgical problems outside of Dublin will atrophy, resulting in increased travel and family dislocation. This vanity project will debilitate the public health service generally for years to come: not least, ironically, it will starve less glamorous children’s needs. For example, the state of the children’s psychiatric service is driving parents to distraction.
We live in times of revenue plenty but the national budget is scarcely balanced, in spite of windfalls which will not recur. This project is driven by those who exist in a Davos-type bubble, and the last straw is the arrival on the scene of the denizens of that place, international business consultants.
We are catching a falling knife. Stop it now. – Yours, etc,
Prof LIAM KIRWAN,
(Surgeon, Retired,
Formerly UCC/CUH),
Penang Medical College,
Malaysia.