Bishop warns hospital site puts children’s lives at risk

Seriously ill children from rural Ireland could die en route to the proposed new national children’s hospital in the heavily-congested city centre of Dublin, a bishop has warned.

Bishop Phonsie Cullinan, the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, is backing a grassroots campaign to urge the Government to move away from the current proposed site at St James’ Hospital to a greenfield site closer to the M50 motorway in Blanchardstown. The campaign is being backed by influential supporters such as Fionnbar Walsh whose inspirational son Donal lost his battle with cancer in 2013.

Dr Cullinan – a former hospital chaplain – is rallying support from fellow bishops outside Dublin warning that the prospect of ambulances navigating Dublin traffic will put the lives of seriously sick children in “jeopardy”.

Bishop Cullinan, who has been meeting with doctors and concerned parents, has said that 90% of sick children going to the three existing children’s hospitals come from outside the M50 and that the proposed city centre site “will seriously disadvantage very ill rural children”, because of the “poor location of the hospital services they need”.

“This is a golden opportunity to get this right,” he told The Irish Catholic. “We are now faced with the real likelihood of seriously ill infants dying in ambulances because they did not survive the journey through busy Dublin streets,” he said.

Bishop Fintan Monahan of the Diocese of Killaloe in the west, agreed that “if it was a more convenient location for rural access that would be more desirable”.

Bishop Cullinan is supporting the ‘Connolly for Kids Hospital’ initiative, which is campaigning for the new hospital to be located at Blanchardstown, just off the M50 convenient to all national routes to the capital.

He said a greenfield site such as at Connolly would have “ample space” for accessibility and parking, and the collocation of maternal and children’s acute services would be “vital”. “95% of transfers from maternity units are sick children,” he said. “They often need urgent care and common sense alone indicates that transfer down a corridor to a special children’s unit is immeasurably better than transfer by ambulance though traffic.

“Currently there is no maternity unit in St James’ and plans indicate a maternal unit in 15 years’ time!”

The bishop urged people to get involved in the campaign saying as “Christians we should be fighting the case for seriously sick children from rural Ireland whose lives will be put in jeopardy by the poor location of the hospital services they need”.