The three children's hospitals in Dublin will be merged into one, it was announced yesterday. Prof Brendan Drumm, head of the Health Service Executive, confirmed the plan after a report on best practice in the provision of paediatric care found the Republic could support only one world-class children's hospital, given its population.
The site for the State's single children's hospital, serving children from across the country with complex illnesses such as heart conditions and cancer as well as providing secondary care to children in Dublin, has not yet been identified.
It will be chosen within the next two months by a taskforce representative of the Department of Health, the HSE and the OPW.
The taskforce chairman will be John O'Brien, director of the HSE's national hospitals office. He said he would be able to indicate how long it would take to build the hospital once a site had been chosen.
The report on best practice worldwide, entitled Children's Health First, was compiled by McKinsey & Co consultants and concluded that there should be:
The HSE has accepted the report in full.
The new hospital will be supported by two to three emergency care units for children across Dublin. These units will not admit children and may be standalone facilities or attached to an adult hospital.
The new plan will have major implications for the three children's hospitals in Dublin - Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, the Children's University Hospital, Temple Street and the National Children's Hospital which is based in Tallaght Hospital.
Prof Drumm confirmed it would spell the end to Crumlin hospital as it exists. It was due to be totally rebuilt. Prof Drumm said the new plan ruled this out.
But he also said this did not mean the new hospital had to be sited at either of the other children's hospitals - Tallaght or the Mater, to which Temple Street was due to move.
"I'm sure there are other adult facilities in this city who will want to be considered in the process," he said.
He said the plan was based on quality of care for children rather than local parochial or political issues.
He insisted the fact that €46 million had been spent on the Mater hospital site as part of the Mater/Temple Street hospital development had not been a waste as it included preliminary work for a huge redevelopment of the Mater hospital itself.
"The reality is that site has to be a very clear candidate to be looked at in terms of the provision of a service that is now going to be based on a single centre for Dublin with close links to an adult facility," he said.
He added that plans had been in place to spend €700 million moving Temple Street and rebuilding Crumlin hospital.
The new hospital, he believed, could be built for "an awful lot less".
The plan will result in about half the number of beds for children as were planned in the individual hospitals but the HSE points out that children need fewer beds than adults, with 90 per cent of them sent home once they are are seen in A&E.
Prof Drumm also said the hospital would "reach out to provide much better support for paediatric units across this country".