Hospitals and professors are backing St James’s campus plan

PLANS to locate the new National Children’s Hospital on the Southside received a powerful endorsement last week, despite a campaign group calling for the project to be moved to Dublin 15. 

A joint statement backing the choice of St James’s Hospital as the chosen site was issued by the Children’s Hospital Group, the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin, Temple Street University Hospital, the National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght, and St James’s Hospital.

“We are unequivocal in our certainty that the campus at St James’s Hospital is the right location for Ireland’s much needed and much wanted new children’s hospital,” the statement reads. “Sharing a campus with St James’s Hospital will deliver better clinical outcomes and improved survival rates for the sickest children and young people. 

“Collectively, we are committed to delivering a state-of the art children’s hospital and to providing the right care and services in the right location, by the right team, for local children and for Ireland’s most vulnerable children and young people. Much of the infrastructure of the three Dublin children’s hospitals does not allow us to provide the best possible care, as services are at three different locations in Dublin, and this is a source of great daily frustration for all the committed staff working in paediatric services.” 

The statement added that while there are many reasons why the campus shared with St James’s is the right location for the new children’s hospital, the primary one is that it has the greatest number of clinical specialties that will best support their teams in the delivery of better services and clinical outcomes for the sickest children and young people.

It added that this “critical” level of clinical support was not available at Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown.

A joint statement from three Professors of Paediatrics – Owen Smith (UCD), Eleanor Molloy (TCD) and Alf Nicholson (RSCI) – also backed the St James’s campus plan.

They stated: “We, the three Professors of Paediatrics in three of the Dublin universities, collectively endorse the campus at St James’s Hospital (SJH) as the right location for the new children’s hospital, which also accommodates paediatric academic and research facilities. This campus is unparalleled in the academic opportunity it presents, not just for paediatrics but the wider health system.

“The speciality of paediatrics already collaborate across the universities. The research community in the existing three children’s hospitals have already well recognised research capabilities and tri-locating these with SJH and the Coombe Women’s and Infants University Hospital, who both have a strong record in healthcare research, will create a cadre of research capabilities that will offer the potential to make real changes, new treatments and possible new cures to the most complex diseases experienced by our children, mothers and adults for future generations.”

Campaigners have been seeking a new children’s hospital for decades. Following a long and detailed planning process and a comprehensive oral hearing last December, An Bord Pleanála granted planning permission for the development of the new children’s hospital on a campus shared with St James’s. 

Construction work for the first phase of the project is scheduled to commence within a matter of weeks. 

Last week, Connolly for Kids handed in a petition with 60,000 signatures to Government Buildings, calling on the new hospital to be located beside the M50 in Dublin 15. 

The campaign group is requesting an urgent public hearing on the matter by the Oireachtas Committee on Health.