Sick children: A parents' group which has been campaigning for years for the upgrading of Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, has reiterated its call for the promised national review of specialist paediatric services to be completed as quickly as possible.
Linda Dillon, chairwoman of the New Crumlin Hospital Group, said the review by the Health Service Executive (HSE) was due to be completed by the end of January and she hoped it would not be delayed.
Furthermore, she said she hoped there would be no dispute over the site chosen as the national tertiary referral centre for children with certain conditions, once a decision on the site was made by the review group.
A dispute would only serve to delay the provision of the best possible services for children, she claimed.
"We have no fixed view as to where this hospital is located, just that it is provided quickly," she said.
"It would seem to us to be immoral and wrong for the development of this hospital to be delayed by even one day due to further debates and disputes over its location," she added.
"We call on all involved in this process to work together to deliver what is in the best interests of the sickest children of this country without delay."
"If you put the children first, it will be quite clear what needs to be done and how quickly it needs to be done."
The options for the HSE are to locate the national tertiary referral centre for children with certain conditions in Dublin, at Crumlin, Temple Street or Tallaght hospitals.
In the midst of speculation that Crumlin would be chosen, the chief executive of the HSE, Prof Brendan Drumm, said there was a possibility the specialist services could be located at the Mater Hospital campus, to which Temple Street children's hospital is due to relocate.
Prof Drumm said "people have different opinions" on where the national centre should be located.
"The rail network will be an important consideration in any decision because up to 40 per cent of children attending the centre will come from outside Dublin," he said.
He added that while he could not "make a determination in advance of a detailed planning process", the tertiary referral centre "should ideally be in the city centre or close to the Mater site".
"The implications will be more significant for people on the Crumlin site than for those in the Mater or Temple Street hospitals," he added.
The HSE is seeking an independent third party to conduct the review of paediatric services. The body wants certain, very complex procedures located on just one site, rather than spread across a number of hospitals across the city.