Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) has still not received early access to the new national children’s hospital despite this phase of the project being due to begin six weeks ago.
The €2.2 billion project has been beset by delays and cost overruns, but is due for substantial completion in June.
The body overseeing the project – the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) – agreed with contractor BAM Ireland that CHI, which operates paediatric healthcare in the State, could have access to the site from April to mitigate risks of delays to operational commissioning and to complete technical commissioning.
However, this access has not yet been granted. It is understood the delay is due to some areas of the hospital not yet being completed to a contractual standard.
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Asked about the delay, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health said Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill met the CHI board on April 28th to discuss the transition to the new hospital and “emphasised the importance of opening the hospital safely and expeditiously”.
The Minister also wrote to BAM on April 15th and received a response on May 2nd, the spokeswoman said, in which she received “confirmation of a mid-summer completion milestone of technical commissioning”.
“The NPHDB and CHI are working to ensure opening can be achieved with minimal further delays. All parties want to see this hospital open as soon as possible,” the spokeswoman said.
“Once substantial completion is achieved the hospital will be handed over to CHI for operational commissioning. This is a complex and critical phase that will involve the installation of more than 36,000 pieces of clinical equipment, integration with the EHR [electronic health records], and the training of over 4,000 staff from the three existing hospitals.”
Operational commissioning will take six to nine months, with the first patients not expected to be treated in the hospital until the first quarter of next year.
CHI has been under consistent pressure in recent months, particularly around the provision of orthopaedic care for children. A report published by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) into the use of unlicensed metal springs in spinal procedures on three children in Temple Street Children’s Hospital in Dublin found children were “not protected from the risk of harm”.
It is understood a second report on orthopaedic services, around unnecessary hip surgeries, has been completed and will be published shortly. A third report, by orthopaedic consultant Selvadurai Nayagam, is also being carried out.
Jim Browne resigned as chairman of the board following the publication of the Hiqa report, with advocacy groups calling for the entire board to be removed. The Minister last week told reporters she would look at the way in which the board is set up “over the next number of months” but that she needs a board to be in place to “to keep the hospital on track”.
