PLANNING PERMISSION has already been obtained for the construction of a new block containing en suite rooms for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients at Dublin’s St Vincent’s hospital, the hospital confirmed yesterday.
It is now ready to tender for the construction of the 120-bed unit, it said.
The construction of the facility has been at the centre of controversy for more than a week, since it emerged that a promise by the Health Service Executive (HSE) to have it built by 2010 would not be honoured.
St Vincent’s, the national referral centre for adults with CF, has just eight single rooms for these patients. It is expected that about 30 single rooms in the new block will be set aside for CF patients.
The HSE had said it would not have funding for the unit until 2011 at the earliest, provoking anger in the CF community, who are prone to picking up infections and therefore need to be accommodated in single rooms when in hospital.
On Monday night, Minister for Health Mary Harney announced that a new way had been found to ensure the project would go ahead after all. She said a builder would be found to construct the facility on the understanding they would not be paid until it was complete. In this way she hopes the unit will be operational early in 2011.
CF campaigner Orla Tinsley thanked the Minister for making this decision and said she would like to meet her to discuss it in detail. Ms Tinsley still has a number of concerns, however, including whether a contractor would be found that would have the budget to go ahead with the unit, knowing that they would not be paid by the State for two years.
She also has concerns that a plan to provide 14 single rooms for CF patients at St Vincent’s in the interim has still not been fully delivered, as only eight rooms have been provided to date.
Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said that, if Ms Harney followed through on her commitment, it was a victory for common sense and would be a great relief to people with CF and their families. He said he was wary, however, of the Minister’s ability to keep her word.
“Furthermore, this could be a recipe for a ‘design to fail’ solution . . . there will be very few building firms with the financial muscle to get the banks’ backing to carry this sort of financing without guarantees from the Government which would allow them to include the cost of finance in the price,” he said.
Dr Reilly claimed the banks had already sought guarantees from the State in relation to the colocated hospitals, which had gone nowhere because the State would not give the guarantee sought.
Labour health spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan said she welcomed Ms Harney’s announcement if it delivered the unit more quickly than had been anticipated in recent days. However, she warned that it was only a promise. “I would still be concerned that they will actually deliver on it,” she said.