Children’s Hospital Delays & Fuel Supports: Government Under Pressure

I'm joined now by the Ireland editor with the Irish Independent, Fionnuala Sheehan, by the Irish Times political correspondent, Jack Horgan-Jones, and by Priscilla Lynch, who is clinical editor with the Medical Independent.

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Priscilla, I will start with yourself.

I'm a little aghast about the idea that there were apparently 500 members of BAM building staff on the grounds of the National Children's Hospital and when the minister asked to see them, he was told they were just around some other corner, just slightly out of view.

Seems a little implausible.

Yes, maybe they're in the bathroom.

I'm sure there's many bathrooms in the brand new hospital.

But look, this has been a very long running saga, the development of the new children's hospital.

I remember when the cost of it was put at 830

million.

And I mean, originally it was mooted to be about 500 or 600 million.

We know now it's going to be over 2 billion.

And as you mentioned there in your interview with the minister, it's very unlikely that we'll see the doors open any time this year.

Though perhaps they could open an outpatient clinic and technically say that it's open, but really, you know, the bulk of it being open and actually transporting the patients across the city, it's going to be a major operation.

Could they do that feasibly? You know, if the minister keeps talking about the hot block and that the hot block is central to the whole thing, that you're outlining a scenario where you don't necessarily need access to the surgical theatres, you could just do day cases effectively and send people in and out in the same day and claim it was open?

Well, I suppose when you give the time that it's going to need to commission everything and they have started doing what they can, absolutely.

But when you look at it's going to be winter time, we will be looking into flu season, also the Christmas period as well.

So you don't really want to be moving.

There are good clinical

reasons not to be moving people in at that time of year.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So it's more likely than it's going to be the spring as well.

But will there be parts of that will be open first? We'll just have to wait and see.