More from the Dolphin Report- …”..Population within the M50  can be stated at approximately 800,000….The NPH  site investigation should take into account the location of the children if the focus is to be upon the best service for the children. The Greater Dublin Area(GDA) population was 1,804,156 in the 2011 census, meaning that one million of the secondary care catchment lives outside[our emphasis] the M50 “.

NCHA comment- add to the above  that the NPH is a NATIONAL  service for Tertiary care and the M50 should have been a “no-brainer” -IF “the focus is to be upon the best service for CHILDREN”.

And, lest the government is unaware , we bring our sick children to hospital by CAR.

“With the expansion of suburbs [of Dublin] westwards and northwards beyond the M50, the M50 has become a central spine and not a perimeter road” .The Dolphin Report- appendix 5 (p22)–A Note on planning context.

Again we ask – Did the government read the Dolphin Report?

We will be posting quotes from the Dolphin report over the next few weeks. Today’s is from p33.

“The new hospital will have a design life of 50-100 years. Huge changes in clinical practice, technology, and patient demand will occur over such a long period, so it is vital that the design of the hospital allows it to change and grow”.

We say – St James’s  site with its poor access and poor parking  – a forever poor National facility for our children and their families.

A shameful Cabinet decision of Nov 2012.

A World Class Tertiary Children’s Hospital for Ireland
Submission from Board of Management, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin, September 2006 – to HSE Transition Group

Excerpt from p6
“CORE VALUES FOR A WORLD-CLASS NATIONAL CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
The Board’s vision for the New Children’s Hospital is defined by three Core Values:

•The new Children’s Hospital must be co-located with a full-service maternity hospital

•The new Children’s Hospital must be an integrated academic health sciences centre, the model adopted by leading paediatric tertiary hospitals world-wide

•Resources for the development of the Children’s Hospital – land, space and design values– must be commensurate with a family-centered, world-class institution respecting the needs of its staff and sufficient to sustain it, as such, over the long term. ”

The Transition Group disappeared “into the ether” when the NPHDB was set up 27th May, 2007 by Statutory Instrument on the eve of the general election.  It produced no reports.

Readers may be interested in this analysis of the Dolphin Report published on the Jack and Jill Foundation website in February 2015.

Read the Open Letter by Dympna McMahon in favour of Connolly Hospital published on the Jack and Jill  Foundation website, Dec 2014 here.

Read scathing comment from Jonathan Irwin of the Jack and Jill  Foundation on the meeting in Farmleigh Feb 12th here

Minister Howlin says “It will be several years before we are in a position to equip it. (National Children’s Hospital). We haven’t started building it yet.” See Irish Examiner,12.11.2014.

NCHA seems to remember Beaumont Hospital built and sitting idle for several years until money was found to equip and open it. Why persist with the  expensive, poor value-for- money  St. James’s site. The Connolly site is shovel-ready, much cheaper, accessible and acceptable. Go for  Connolly, Minister.