1billion to build children's hospital

It's in the wrong place..
It's same size as the one its replacing..
It will overrun on cost and will end up costing 1.2 Billion..
It will cost another 500 or 600 Million to fit out..
It will lay idle when built as there is no Staff, or no parking if they do find Staff..
It's going to be a Rush Hour nightmare, so only get sick on Sunday's ..

There is 100 acres at Newlands Cross,, or there is another 100 acres at Peamount Hospital..

Newlands Cross is where it should be.. the luas goes past, the Nass Road is a fine 3 lane road with many bus routes nearby.

Build it out from Dublin on the M4 or M7 with entry and exit the same as the Motorway service areas.That would be common sense which unfortunately is lacking in Ireland.

http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057591046/15

I said 11 months ago that this wouldn't be within budget.
May as well use that thread to continue it on.

Cartouche wrote: »

Having watched the piece on Prime Time, its not a surprise the costs are so amazing. The lady on representing the project basically the costs were a secret and the public were on a need to know basis

Of course we are, sure we're only paying for the ****ing thing.

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Run special luas carriages with big red crosses on them.it'll be great on a hot day. Virus incubators. Yay.

Jump on with your broken arm crammer in with loads of other sick people and get a nice infection to boot.

Sorry but that's not what I meant. Poster asked how would people get there and I answered.

How do people get to all other hospitals.

Well ambulance, taxi, private car, bus, luas or train so actually no they wouldn't need any red crosses.

Red line is sufficient enough it already carries many of the walking dead.

satguy wrote: »

.............................
It will lay idle when built as there is no Staff, or no parking if they do find Staff..
It's going to be a Rush Hour nightmare, so only get sick on Sunday's ..

There is 100 acres at Newlands Cross,, or there is another 100 acres at Peamount Hospital..

Newlands Cross is where it should be.. the luas goes past, the Nass Road is a fine 3 lane road with many bus routes nearby.

If it doesn't make any sense there is generally a brown envelope involved

They are "saving" those sites for the private hospitals in the future

Trump would build it for 400m and come in under budget and under time.

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Trump would build it for 400m and come in under budget and under time.

Then he'd send all the immigrants home who helped build it and remove free health care for anyone who really needs it.

Anita Blow wrote: »

Ease of access is an important factor for any hospital, I agree. However it's not the only factor and in fact it's not the most important factor. I gladly criticise the department of health and HSE for being inept geebags, but the location and format of the NCH was informed by a committee of international experts to avoid the exact dublin/rural divide, accusations of politicians getting kickbacks arguments that people have thrown up here.

Co-location is a necessity. That's a fact. Getting from Athlone to an M50 greenfield site in less time than it would take to get to James' is nice, but it means feck all if your child has major burns and the major burn surgeon is 30-40 mins away in James'. It means feck all to the neonates in the coombe/Holles st/rotunda who would be further and may need urgent transfer where every minute counts.

If anyone has read the independent report commissioned (which looks at the top 17 paediatric hospitals in the world) you will see there is only one paediatric hospital that isn't co-located. The authors even balanced the issue of access VS co-location. They cited the Bristol Inquiry in the UK which said that “quality and safety should prevail over ease of
access”.

Hey you! Yes you, with your informed opinion. You are not welcome here.

I said wrote: »

Cost has more than doubled from 400million in 2012 to 1 billion today.

Incorrect thread title:

€1 billion to discuss building children's hospital.

I said wrote: »

All I want to know is what shower of thieving,greedy,corrupt and backhander specialists are the only ones who think they know best for the country.

Answer is predominantly the HSE, but also Mary Harney. Everyone outside of the HSE top brass and minister for health could tell them that the Mater was an unsuitable location. Some people, like Philip Lynch, were told that the location was not up for discussion, and resigned because of it. An Bord Pleanála rejected their original plan as inappropriate.

It's not clear who were on the expert groups, or how the costs have spiraled so much, but James Reilly also seemed to make a haimes of the affair.

If we could work out why the HSE and ministry of health were so bad at organising building a hospital, perhaps it would indicate how to fix the management of health services in Ireland, in general (which are pretty poorly managed).

Blame the people. They keep electing the usual suspects. Change in Ireland is feared.

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Trump would build it for 400m and come in under budget and under time.

And the sick would simply be put down unless they're veterans.

Jesus...spend 2bn...lets go state of the art....cos we arent doing one again for another 100 years. Lets do this right

Anita Blow wrote: »

Ease of access is an important factor for any hospital, I agree. However it's not the only factor and in fact it's not the most important factor. I gladly criticise the department of health and HSE for being inept geebags, but the location and format of the NCH was informed by a committee of international experts to avoid the exact dublin/rural divide, accusations of politicians getting kickbacks arguments that people have thrown up here.

Co-location is a necessity. That's a fact. Getting from Athlone to an M50 greenfield site in less time than it would take to get to James' is nice, but it means feck all if your child has major burns and the major burn surgeon is 30-40 mins away in James'. It means feck all to the neonates in the coombe/Holles st/rotunda who would be further and may need urgent transfer where every minute counts.

If anyone has read the independent report commissioned (which looks at the top 17 paediatric hospitals in the world) you will see there is only one paediatric hospital that isn't co-located. The authors even balanced the issue of access VS co-location. They cited the Bristol Inquiry in the UK which said that “quality and safety should prevail over ease of
access”.

If you set the correct terms of reference you get the desired result.
As others have siad most people travel to these hospitals via car, not luas not train, not bus.

Now maybe someday we will all have some super duper public transport, but even then i don't think most pearents will bring their sick children on public transport so that they are more open to infactions, etc.

BTW you linking this to having to be close to three very badly sited maternity hospitals already shows how limited your thinking is, much like our governments (yes there have multiple ones involved in this debacle), the Dept of health and HSE.

For anyone who has experience of Hollis St it is absolute shyte location where there is absolutely no parking.
The hospital building itself is from the fooking 19th century and not fit for purpose.
And this is from experience of having to see your wife spend the night on a corridor with a newborn baby and having no parking which means a woman in labour has to walk down the street to get to the door. :mad::mad:

A new childrens hospital should have been outside Dublin city cnetre and one or more of the major maternity hsopitals moved out to it.

This whole debacle is political maneouvering both by actual politicians and vested medial interests.
It is much like how every fecking hospital in the country was redesignated a University Hospital.
It is like how first HSE CEO was allowed setup in Naas because it suited him.

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Ah here, will you stop bringing facts into the discussion. Some of us are trying to have an uninformed rant.

Yeah would these be like the facts that had the Mater has the first site ?
I can remember quiet a few people lauding that location as well until suddenly it was found that it wasn't right.

jmayo wrote: »

Anita Blow wrote: »

Ease of access is an important factor for any hospital, I agree. However it's not the only factor and in fact it's not the most important factor. I gladly criticise the department of health and HSE for being inept geebags, but the location and format of the NCH was informed by a committee of international experts to avoid the exact dublin/rural divide, accusations of politicians getting kickbacks arguments that people have thrown up here.

Co-location is a necessity. That's a fact. Getting from Athlone to an M50 greenfield site in less time than it would take to get to James' is nice, but it means feck all if your child has major burns and the major burn surgeon is 30-40 mins away in James'. It means feck all to the neonates in the coombe/Holles st/rotunda who would be further and may need urgent transfer where every minute counts.

If anyone has read the independent report commissioned (which looks at the top 17 paediatric hospitals in the world) you will see there is only one paediatric hospital that isn't co-located. The authors even balanced the issue of access VS co-location. They cited the Bristol Inquiry in the UK which said that “quality and safety should prevail over ease of
access”.

If you set the correct terms of reference you get the desired result.
As others have siad most people travel to these hospitals via car, not luas not train, not bus.

Now maybe someday we will all have some super duper public transport, but even then i don't think most pearents will bring their sick children on public transport so that they are more open to infactions, etc.

BTW you linking this to having to be close to three very badly sited maternity hospitals already shows how limited your thinking is, much like our governments (yes there have multiple ones involved in this debacle), the Dept of health and HSE.

For anyone who has experience of Hollis St it is absolute shyte location where there is absolutely no parking.
The hospital building itself is from the fooking 19th century and not fit for purpose.
And this is from experience of having to see your wife spend the night on a corridor with a newborn baby and having no parking which means a woman in labour has to walk down the street to get to the door. :mad::mad:

A new childrens hospital should have been outside Dublin city cnetre and one or more of the major maternity hsopitals moved out to it.

This whole debacle is political maneouvering both by actual politicians and vested medial interests.
It is much like how every fecking hospital in the country was redesignated a University Hospital.
It is like how first HSE CEO was allowed setup in Naas because it suited him.

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Ah here, will you stop bringing facts into the discussion. Some of us are trying to have an uninformed rant.

Yeah would these be like the facts that had the Mater has the first site ?
I can remember quiet a few people lauding that location as well until suddenly it was found that it wasn't right.

You can try dismiss it by suggesting the terms of reference were deliberately framed to place it at James' (despite this report being commissioned almost a decade before James' was settled on as the location). The reality is that the evidence favours co-location with a major tertiary hospital. The major tertiary hospitals are located in and around the city, and so this takes precedence over ease of access for outpatients. In fact, a quick check on google maps shows that there is less than 6 minutes in the difference in travel time for someone travelling from the west of the country to Connolly VS James'.
Evidence to support co-location:

• 16/17 of the top paediatric hospitals are co-located with a major adult teaching hospital (McKinsey 2006)
• "Children's acute hospital services should ideally be located in a children's hospital, which should be physically as close as possible to an acute general hospital" (Bristol Enquiry 2001). For example, the cardiothoracic surgeons in Crumlin (which acts as the national centre for paediatric cardiac services) also work on adults in James'. At present they are 8 minutes away if they are needed for emergency care in Crumlin. A children's hospital at Connolly would increase this 3-fold.
• "Children's specialist acute hospital services should be co-located with adult, maternity & neo-natal services" (Scottish review of paediatric services, 2004)
• The Queensland Review 2006 recommended the merger of 2 paediatric hospitals into a single hospital, on the campus of a major adult hospital "to act as the hub of state-wide network of paediatric tertiary services"

Co-location is international best practice. That is a fact. Quality of care for the kids of the country takes precedence over ease of finding a parking space. We're not the first nor are we the only country that has their major hospitals located throughout the capital city.

cabledude wrote: »

Anita Blow wrote: »

You can try dismiss it by suggesting the terms of reference were deliberately framed to place it at James' (despite this report being commissioned almost a decade before James' was settled on as the location). The reality is that the evidence favours co-location with a major tertiary hospital. The major tertiary hospitals are located in and around the city, and so this takes precedence over ease of access for outpatients. In fact, a quick check on google maps shows that there is less than 6 minutes in the difference in travel time for someone travelling from the west of the country to Connolly VS James'.
Evidence to support co-location:

• 16/17 of the top paediatric hospitals are co-located with a major adult teaching hospital (McKinsey 2006)
• "Children's acute hospital services should ideally be located in a children's hospital, which should be physically as close as possible to an acute general hospital" (Bristol Enquiry 2001). For example, the cardiothoracic surgeons in Crumlin (which acts as the national centre for paediatric cardiac services) also work on adults in James'. At present they are 8 minutes away if they are needed for emergency care in Crumlin. A children's hospital at Connolly would increase this 3-fold.
• "Children's specialist acute hospital services should be co-located with adult, maternity & neo-natal services" (Scottish review of paediatric services, 2004)
• The Queensland Review 2006 recommended the merger of 2 paediatric hospitals into a single hospital, on the campus of a major adult hospital "to act as the hub of state-wide network of paediatric tertiary services"

Co-location is international best practice. That is a fact. Quality of care for the kids of the country takes precedence over ease of finding a parking space. We're not the first nor are we the only country that has their major hospitals located throughout the capital city.

What does Google say about travel times from Limerick/Galway/Wexford to a greenfield site out aat the M50 vs inner ciry Dublin. A car travelling un-escorted. An ambulance under blue lights is a difference scenario obviously.

From Limerick to Peamount, which is a greenfield site just outside the M50, is just 9 minutes less travel time than St. James'. A severely stunted children's hospital located miles from the adult hospitals & maternity hospitals it depends on is not worth 9 minutes less travel time for a non-urgent outpatient

cabledude wrote: »

Anita Blow wrote: »

Post above coming out weird and won't let me correct. In response to the post above
From Limerick to Peamount, which is a greenfield site just outside the M50, is just 9 minutes less travel time than St. James'. A severely stunted children's hospital located miles from the adult hospitals & maternity hospitals it depends on is not worth 9 minutes less travel time for a non-urgent outpatient

I don't think you get it. Getting into Dublin city centre, for those of us who don't live in or around Dublin, is a nightmare. Its a hideous city to try and get around by car. Imagine, if you can, having a child who is going through some sort of treatment. Mum will be in the back most likely. Dad or some other family member will be driving. Add all these factors into the traffic, abundance of road signs for every place except where you want to go. Then you have the heavy traffic, car parking issues and all the rest.

If you and the people making the decision to locate this new hospital in the middle of an already congested city cannot see the merit of what I posted above, I don't know what to think. Co-locate by all means. Build the new hospital out in the M50 and build a new maternity hospital under the same roof.

The families and children and logistics should not be discounted.

And if you can drive to the M50 in 9 minutes less than getting to inner city Dublin you are some woman for one woman.

PS. No-one believes Google Maps or AA route planner or any  other app.

If you're coming from the country then you won't be driving through the city. James' is on the outskirts to the west and from the Rialto exit is 10 mins to the nearest M50 exit. I worked in St. James' for 2 years and travelled to and from there every day, I'm well acquainted with access.
As I have said 3 times now, the planners have not discounted travel considerations. In fact they expressly did consider it and weighed it up VS the other competing factors. They reached the same conclusion that almost every other developed health system has, and they backed it up by citing several reports across 17 countries that showed that safety & quality of care, which only co-location can offer, trumps the relatively minor improved travel times that an M50 location offers. 
Your alternative is not practically feasible. James' is 3 times the size of the NCH and also has an academic campus and several research facilities. It would cost multiples of what the NCH is costing to move the hospital, and would then cost many more hundreds of millions or even billions to establish the transport links (both roads & public transport- James' is served by Dublin Bus, Luas & Heuston station) that James' already offers. It would then cost hundreds more millions to build a maternity hospital there and it would severely stunt emergency care for neonates requiring transfer to the NCH. 

If we could magic up an adult tertiary hospital, a national paediatric hospital and a maternity hospital with all the necessary transport links for them to function at the same time then it would work. But we can't. So in the 15-20 years it would realistically take to build a new adult hospital on the site of a greenfield paediatric hospital, quality of care for children would be severely compromised.

It is now 11 years since planning begun for the NCH and building hasn't even started. It's estimated completion date is 2021, which is 15 years from when it planning started. How will relocating a hospital 3x larger, an on-site university campus and the numerous research facilities be completed quicker? Even barring the enormous physical task, where do we get the money to complete it in a shorter timeframe? The NCH which is 450 beds is now 1-1.5 billion (when you include equipment cost) for a single building. James's is over 1200 beds with numerous other state-of-the-art research and academic facilities. Rebuilding all that will not be cheap and I'd wager we do not have the money for it.


I've raised several valid points and cited international sources for best practice. Instead of citing anything to counter them you're trying to insinuate I've something to gain. I've treated very sick kids during my time in hospital. My sole concern is the quality of their care, which is already severely compromised by the broken system we're forced to work in here. I'm not prepared to accept that being needlessly eroded further because Paddy thinks he's cracked some code that no other country has and wants to build a children's hospital miles from any of the adult hospitals it relies on for skilled staff, or maternity hospitals which depend on nearby paediatric facilities for emergency transfers, routine MRIs etc.

Doctors and consultants agreed to this. That is the end game.

Nothing will entice them to Tallaght or Blanchardstown. Not enough specialities there.

They decided, not us, not the Government, they did. And they will all get designated parking too in James so they are all happy out.