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Group appeals for timetable to address crises at Crumlin Hospital
Dublin, Ireland - April 21st, 2003 - The New Crumlin Hospital Group is appealing to the Minister for Health and Children to immediately publish the timetable for the complete redevelopment of Crumlin Children’s Hospital.
The appeal follows commitments made by the Minister at a meeting with The New Crumlin Hospital Group on 20th February 2003. (The New Crumlin Hospital Group was set up in March 2002 and is seeking the complete redevelopment of the hospital by 2009.)
At the meeting the Minister said that he was committed to the hospital’s redevelopment, had established a Project Team to start planning the redevelopment and would have the timetable prepared. Two months later, this timetable has not been issued.
“Without this timetable the redevelopment process could easily drag on for years without anybody being accountable. This cannot be allowed to happen. The hospital is in a crisis because it has been starved of proper investment for decades,” said Chairman of The New Crumlin Hospital Group, Karl Anderson.
“We do not want to see a repeat of the shamefully slow progress witnessed with the development of the new theatre block which has taken 15 years to develop and will only be finished at the end of this year,” he said.
“The staff and patients deserve to know for how long more they must endure the outdated and grossly inadequate facilities at the hospital revealed by The Pollock Report which was published by the Group in February 2003* and highlighted by the RTE series ‘Our Lady’s’. (The last programme in the series will be broadcast on Tuesday 22nd April 2003)
“The Minister needs to send a clear signal to the officials working on the redevelopment that he is treating Crumlin Hospital as urgent and he wants progress achieved by a specific timetable,” he said.
For further information contact:
Karl Anderson, Chairman – The New Crumlin Hospital Group - Mobile: 087 280 4700 Home: 8208180
e-mail: info@newcrumlinhospital.org
Web: www.newcrumlinhospital.org
Group appeals for timetable to address crises at Crumlin Hospital
Background Information - 21st April 2003The New Crumlin Hospital Group, formed in March 2002, is a lobby group of parents of children who attend or have attended Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin.
The Group’s single objective is to have the hospital completely rebuilt as a modern children’s hospital by the end of 2009.
* During 2002 the Group commissioned a major independent audit of the hospital, which consisted of a detailed ward-by-ward and facility-by-facility analysis of the physical infrastructure of the hospital.
The audit was carried out by Dr Ronnie Pollock, a Partner with UK-based hospital consultancy firm MPA International Health Strategy & Planning, and it concluded that the hospital is seriously outdated, many of the facilities are below minimum standard and it should be replaced. (The report is available at www.newcrumlinhospital.org)
Minister for Health and Children, Michael Martin TD recently told the Dail that the physical facilities at Crumlin were “unacceptable”.
The Group has the support of more than 6000 members through the following organisations: Heart Children Ireland, The Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland, Primary Immunodeficiency Association of Ireland, The Cleft Lip and Palate Association, Spina Bifida & Hydrocephaelus, Post Polio Support Group, Fighting Blindness, Irish Society for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, Irish Haemophiliac Society, Children in Hospital Ireland, The Irish Kidney Association, DEBRA Ireland, and SOFT.
Our Lady’s opened in 1957 as a local hospital and is now the country’s largest children’s hospital.
It treats 130,000 children annually, the majority of whom have complex and sometimes life threatening illnesses. More than 40% of patients are referred to it from Health Authorities other than the Eastern Regional Health Authority.
For many children, Crumlin Hospital is a home from home with many attending regularly from birth into adolescence.
