Kenny urged to change children’s hospital site

CALLS FOR CHANGE Pictured are a group of Connolly For kids campaigners outside Leinster House.

Ciara Galvin

AN TAOISEACH Enda Kenny has been called on by concerned parents from his home county to reconsider the proposed site for the new national children’s hospital.
In November 2012, a site at the existing St James’s Hospital in Dublin City was chosen for the new hospital, despite calls for a site at Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown to be considered.
Now, three-and-a-half years later, parents in Mayo and across the country are calling for the Government to reconsider the location.
“The big issue is access. If the hospital is located in the city centre, you’re looking at another 40 minutes or an hour added on to an already long journey,” said Kiltimagh mother, Orla Gibney.
The mother of three is supporting the campaign ‘Connolly for Kid’s Hospital’, which recently saw supporters travel to Government buildings to present An Taoiseach Enda Kenny with a petition, signed by 60,000 people, calling for the location change.

Added hardship
The Gibney family have endured many hospital appointments in Dublin after they discovered son Eoin was born profoundly deaf.
“We spent three weeks in Temple Street in February after Eoin got a brain-fluid leak, and we experienced that distance from home. You realise tasks like parking your car add time onto a journey. We’re back to Dublin every month, but luckily for us it’s in Beaumont, so we come off the M50 and you’re there,” explained Orla.
Orla said that anything that can make life easier for parents with sick children should be done, which means changing the location of the proposed hospital to the easier-to-access Connolly Hospital.
According to the Jack and Jill foundation, 75 percent of children attending hospitals for tertiary care (specialised consultative health care) come from outside the M50 region.
The foundation says that these children account for half of day cases and are the sickest children of all and will be most inconvenienced if the new children’s hospital is not easily accessible and if it does not have adequate parking.

Traffic chaos
Paula Dunne, who is soon moving to Kiltimagh, also believes that accessibility dictated that the hospital should be built on the larger Connolly site.
Paula’s son, Coinneach, was diagnosed with Down Syndrome after he was born. Due to heart complications he required weekly check-ups in Crumlin until he was four months.
“At the time, I was living in Dublin and had to commute by buses across the city. I was on the St James’s route and traffic is chaos. There is no helicopter site at the proposed site at St James’s Hospital; that is really bad. Most children with heart problems have to be flown,” said Paula.
Asked what she would say to An Taoiseach Enda Kenny if she met him, Paula said she would ‘look him in the eye and tell him he doesn’t care about our children’.
Referring to last week’s petition handover to a porter at Government buildings instead of An Taoiseach, who was touring Mayo with US Vice-President Joe Biden, Ms Dunne said it showed ‘absolute ignorance to the voice of parents’.
“Kenny should have told someone in Government to meet the group. Where was the Minister for Health? Where was the Tanaiste? Plenty of notice was given,” said Paula.