Sir, – Your editorial (March 26th) calling for caution in pushing for the opening of the new national children’s hospital (NCH) is welcome.
The safety of children, families and staff has notably been absent from much of the public wrangling and political grandstanding over delays in construction.
The outcome of the six-year inquiry into deaths of children after the opening of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow ought to be mandatory reading for everyone involved in making the NCH a reality.
Three moments where the disastrous consequences could have been avoided leap off the pages of the reported findings.
READ MORE
Firstly, the repeated warnings from clinical staff that there was insufficient staff to open the hospital. These warnings were ignored.
Secondly, the dismissal of the multiple concerns of senior clinical microbiologists as attention-seeking when they advocated for a delay in opening the hospital in 2015.
Lastly, the failure to intervene when families raised alarm in the months after the hospital started to admit children.
There are likely to be hundreds of risk assessments carried out to decide on when the NCH is ready for opening. Let’s focus on safety and preventing harm by ensuring that these risk assessments are made publicly available.
It is simply inarguable that advance interrogation of identified risks in a transparent manner trumps a late statutory inquiry into deaths that ought not to have happened.
If we are to learn from the Glasgow experience, the concerns of families, clinical staff and whistleblowers must be acknowledged, respected and substantially addressed before the ribbon is cut on the NCH. – Yours etc,
Dr SUZANNE CROWE,
Consultant in paediatric intensive care and president of the Medical Council,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.
