Latest news with #NationalChildrensHospital
BreakingNews.ie
27-05-2025
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
What's the story with Children's Health Ireland?
Three members of the board of Children's Health Ireland (CHI) resigned on Tuesday morning, after months of controversy at the operator of paediatric healthcare in the State. CHI was established in 2019 to govern and operate paediatric services in Ireland, and currently operates Temple Street, Crumlin and Tallaght hospitals. It will also operate the new National Children's Hospital upon completion. Advertisement In recent times, there have been a number of controversies in the hospital, including ongoing delays with the completion of the National Children's Hospital, the implantation of unapproved springs into children with scoliosis, the threshold for hip surgeries, and surgical outcomes for children in the orthopaedic service. The Children's Health Ireland group is a separate entity from the HSE, although it is funded by the HSE and accountable to it. Who resigned? A total of four board members of Children's Health Ireland have resigned over the past week, after months of controversy at the operator of paediatric healthcare in the State. Dr Gavin Lavery, Brigid McManus and Catherine Guy tendered resignation letters to the Health Minister on Tuesday morning, following on from the resignation of Mary Cryan last week. Advertisement Ms Cryan is a former HR director with the Brown Thomas Group, and former employer member of the Labour Court. Dr Lavery is a former ICU physician, president of the intensive care society of Ireland and clinical director of HSC Safety Forum (NI). Ms Guy is currently chief executive of NiftiBusiness and a former managing partner of ByrneWallace Law Firm in Dublin, while Ms McManus is a former secretary-general at the Department of Education and Skills. That means 40 per cent of the CHI board have resigned in the last seven days. Advertisement In April, the chairman of the CHI board Dr Jim Browne also resigned following the publication of a critical report into the use of springs in child spinal surgery. Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, confirmed the resignations during an interview on RTÉ Radio. She today updated Cabinet on the actions taken to improve the governance of CHI and the National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh (NOHC) following last week's clinic audit report on hip surgeries. Ms Carroll MacNeill said HSE chief Bernard Gloster has agreed to respond to the report and its implications within the next week. She will also update on the appointment of two HSE board members to the CHI board as well as a strengthening of the Service Level Agreement between the HSE and CHI. Advertisement Ms Carroll MacNeill said that she had "strong questions about the governance of CHI and its direction towards the future" and that there had been three resignations from the board this morning. "We need to have a functional governance structure to enable us to get to the opening of the Children's Hospital and to deal with the many issues in children's health," she told RTÉ Radio One. Ms Carroll MacNeill said she was not empowered by law to ask for the resignations. She said there were now seven people on the CHI board, including two she appointed over the weekend from the HSE board. 'There are seven people on it that were appointed in 2025 or in 2024. There are now three additional vacancies, and I will be looking to make similar appointments over the next number of days.' Advertisement Controversies This all comes after several controversies involving CHI, including a report published on Friday that found many children underwent 'unnecessary' hip surgeries in two Dublin hospitals. The clinical audit of dysplasia of the hips surgeries in children found that a lower threshold for operations was used at CHI Temple Street hospital and the National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh (NOHC) than the threshold used at CHI Crumlin. The review discovered that in the period 2021 to 2023 almost 80 per cent of children operated on at the NOHC, and 60 per cent of those at Temple Street, did not meet the threshold for surgery. The 2,259 children who underwent hip surgeries in the three hospitals (NOHC, CHI Temple Street and CHI Crumlin) from as far back as 2010 will now be subject to clinical reviews. Opposition TDs have called for a public inquiry and for CHI to be fully subsumed into the HSE. People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy said the hip dysplasia issue was a 'horrendous scandal' and there was a 'very fundamental problem of governance' in CHI. 'I think CHI is not fit for purpose as currently set up. I think that's kind of part of what a public inquiry needs to look at, but it needs to be quick.' In an interview on RTÉ Radio One's This Week programme, HSE boss Bernard Gloster said that t he potential for Children's Health Ireland (CHI) to be fully subsumed into the HSE will be one option considered amid concerns around clinical care and governance. Mr Gloster was asked if the issues highlighted by the report were down to bad decisions by doctors or a bad system. 'It can be a combination of any of those and rarely in a deficiency in a healthcare system will it come down to one single part of that,' he said. Asked if there would be accountability for individual surgeons, Mr Gloster highlighted that CHI and NOHC were the employers, not the HSE. But he said the question of accountability was 'fair and appropriate'. He said there were also questions about the governance of the institutions involved. The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) found in April that the use of springs in spinal child surgery, which were of a non-medical grade, was 'wrong'. The springs were used in three operations carried out by a surgeon at CHI's Temple Street. On Sunday, Mr Gloster was asked if the option of subsuming CHI into the HSE was being considered, he replied: 'The minister wants to consider all of the options. And, of course, when she sets out all of the options, that has to be one that gets considered, but it is not the only one.' Mr Gloster added: 'The job of the executive, the job of CHI, the job of the doctors and everybody else today is leave the minister to do her job. She will do that very well and give us policy direction. 'We need to get on with looking after these children and with supporting their families.'
Irish Times
25-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on infrastructure: stop making the same mistakes
The news that the official opening of the National Children's Hospital will be further delayed will not come as a surprise to anyone who has been observing the tortuous progress of this elephantine project. Completion of the hospital, a vital piece of the State's health infrastructure, has been delayed again until at least September, with patients now not expected to be treated there until June 2026 at the earliest. The facility has become emblematic of the apparent impossibility of delivering major capital projects on time and on budget. Concern is intensified by the fact that the Government is committed to the most extensive programme of infrastructure investment in the State's newly-appointed director of MetroLink, Sean Sweeney, has already said the underground rail line from Dublin Airport to the south-central city could cost 20 per cent more than its projected budget of ¤9.5 billion. Sweeney brings a welcome international perspective to the question of why large projects appear doomed to suffer cost overruns, delays or both. He has bluntly said MetroLink's planned completion date of 2035 will probably not be met and that there will be 'grievous' disruption to people's lives during its construction. READ MORE Such frankness is welcome. Stories such as that of the truncated HSS train line in the UK, the aborted high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco or the decades it took to complete Berlin's Brandenburg airport, have all given fuel to accusations that the modern administrative state, and democratic systems generally, are mired in over-regulation, excessive litigation and a failure of public administration. Whether fair or not, these critiques carry a particular resonance in Ireland, where a combination of decades of under-investment and a sharp rise in population is already putting intolerable pressure on creaking infrastructure. It remains to be seen whether the reform of planning legislation introduced by the last government will improve the situation, although many observers are sceptical. A report on infrastructure last week from Ibec, the business lobby, had a range of sensible recommendations on speeding up delivery, as well as calling for a review to ensure the wider public good takes priority in planning. And planning is not the only issue. The chair of the new Oireachtas Committee on Infrastructure has said it will examine the practice of 'lowballing' on public capital projects, where estimates of cost are pitched low but the price escalates afterwards. With the benefit of Apple's tax payment and significant resources in the exchequer, the Government has an opportunity to make progress on transformational investments. But it can't just continue doing the same things and hoping for a different result.
BreakingNews.ie
22-05-2025
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
‘Crazy' that Children's Hospital deadline has been missed 15 times, Dáil hears
It is 'crazy' that the deadline for the National Children's Hospital to open has been missed 15 times, the Dáil has been told. The Public Accounts Committee heard on Thursday that in the past seven months, developer BAM had achieved around 60 per cent of its planned progress. Advertisement This has moved the completion deadline from June to September 30th – the 15th time the substantial completion date has been extended, according to the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board. Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty told the Dáil the hospital had become 'an epic saga' which has ballooned from a cost of €650 million to €2.2 billion. 'The deadline for opening this hospital has been missed 15 times – 15 times. Like that's crazy. Crazy,' he told Tánaiste Simon Harris during Leaders' Questions. 'You've broken your election promise when you said it would be delivered in June. Advertisement 'Do you really expect the public to have any greater faith in this date compared to any one of the other 15 dates that you and your Government ministers have announced?' He accused Mr Harris, a former health minister, of signing off on a contract to build the hospital that was 'skewed in favour of the construction company'. 'It was build-as-you-go, and that is why BAM has the state over the barrel for the last eight years.' Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA 'Now your Government is blaming the construction company. It's not a surprise to anybody on this side that developers are going to squeeze as much profit out as they can. But competent ministers… are supposed to protect the public purse,' he said. Advertisement Mr Harris said the hospital was 'well over 95 per cent complete' and technical commissioning was under way. He accused Sinn Fein of hypocrisy and said a children's hospital to be built in Belfast would cost more per square metre than Dublin's, citing the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO). 'The First Minister of Northern Ireland, who's your party's vice president, said she was 'delighted that £671 million would be spent on a state-of-an-art children's hospital at Belfast Royal Victoria Hospital. 'Ladies and gentlemen, who was that contract with? Does anyone know? BAM, the same developer who's building the hospital in this jurisdiction.' Advertisement He said BAM had since pulled out of the project, which had delayed it. 'They (the PBO) have looked at the hospital Sinn Fáin are presiding over the north, the hospital we're presiding over here with BAM, and they found yours is more expensive than the one we're delivering. So get over yourself with the absolute hypocrisy.' He said the hospital has 22 operating theatres, 6,150 rooms with spaces for parents to stay with their child, and a helipad. 'We know it's a hospital that costs more than originally intended, that is true. Advertisement 'And yes, you know – because you've been covering finance for a hell of a long time for your party – you know that we've changed significantly the approach we take to the delivery of infrastructure.' Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said no one was questioning the quality of the hospital. He said the additional €1.5 billion it has cost to build has 'come from the pockets of hard-working Irish citizens and taxpayers'. 'It's not a victimless crime as well. The opportunity cost of that €1.5 billion would have actually paid for over 4,500 homes in this country. It would have housed up to 18,000 people, more than the number of people who are currently homeless. 'But Tánaiste, you are the blame-shifting expert in this country. Simon 'it wasn't me' Harris.' He raised previous quotes from Mr Harris that he was not responsible for signing the contract that underpinned the construction of the Dublin hospital. 'This contract lacks an enormous amount of detail within it, which has allowed it to become a blank cheque for the contractor, it is designed to fail from the start,' Mr Toibin said. Ireland National Children's Hospital bill tops €2.2bn and... Read More He added that 'inertia, waste and blame-shifting are the characteristics of this Government'. Mr Harris said he was responsible for bringing the proposal to Cabinet and recommending they proceed, and would be responsible for 'a world-class facility' and 'transforming children's healthcare'. 'Nobody gets everything right in politics and a lot of lessons have been learned,' he said.
BreakingNews.ie
22-05-2025
- Health
- BreakingNews.ie
Opening of National Children's Hospital delayed for the 15th time
The new National Children's Hospital will not open until at least the end of June 2026. It is the 15th time the long-awaited project has been delayed. Advertisement The hospital will not be handed over until the end of September, and it will take at least another nine months before it is ready for patients. The potential costs of the hospital continue to climb with contractors BAM submitting over €850 million in claims to date. David Gunning of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, insists it is not just signing blank cheques. He was responding to questions from Sinn Féin's Cathy Bennet: Advertisement "There will be 6,000 rooms in the new Children's Hospital and most of the diagnostic equipment is already in. "But it's still not ready and with it already being delayed 15 times – a 16th time is very possible." Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty is criticising the latest delay. "15 times, like that's crazy. Crazy, because children, you're right, are waiting for this hospital," he said. "We know it's state of the art, but not only has the deadline been missed 15 times, this project has gone from €650 million up to €2.2 billion and we're not sure that that's going to be the final cost." In February, the Minister for Health said that she anticipated the final cost of the new hospital would be " close to" €2.24 billion and that additional claims by the builder BAM had yet to be adjudicated. At that point, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said only €48 million of the €853 million they were claiming had been approved.
