IMO Criticises 'Blame Game' Over Children's Hospital Delays

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has voiced strong frustration over the protracted delays and escalating costs associated with the National Children's Hospital, a project now mired in what its president, Professor Matthew Sadlier, terms a "tedious" "blame game" among key stakeholders. Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Professor Sadlier expressed dismay that the public is being subjected to a continuous cycle of finger-pointing between the Department of Health, the Health Service Executive (HSE), and the hospital's constructors, rather than a unified approach to resolution.

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Can they not do their business behind closed doors, have a joint press conference at some point in time and say look we've ironed out our differences, we're going to have a completion date of x.

Professor Sadlier highlighted the alarming lack of a definitive completion date for the hospital, which had an original target of August 2022. With thousands of defects still needing rectification and costs spiraling from an initial €650 million to a staggering €2.2 billion, the situation is untenable. He lamented that negotiations and disputes are being conducted through the media, creating an "unedifying construct" for healthcare professionals and parents alike, who are left in limbo regarding when this critical facility will finally open.

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Rather than them conducting their negotiations through the newspapers, through wherever, that has become a very unedifying construct for those of us who are working within the system, those of us who are parents who are like - when is this going to happen?

Beyond criticizing the current impasse, the IMO president advocated for systemic change. He proposed that healthcare infrastructure development should be elevated to the status of critical national infrastructure, suggesting the government enact a specific "health infrastructure bill or act." This, he argued, would provide the necessary legislative framework to expedite the delivery of essential healthcare facilities. Professor Sadlier also raised concerns about the potential diversion of the health service's infrastructure budget towards the children's hospital, possibly impacting the delivery of other vital services like beds and operating theatres elsewhere. He concluded by expressing a lack of surprise at the continued delays, noting a societal "habituation" to such postponements, and questioned the prioritization of the building's external aesthetics over its functional capacity.

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At our recent AGM we passed a motion that healthcare infrastructure needs to become part of the Critical Infrastructure Bill. I'd actually now after yesterday go a little bit further and say the Government needs to pass a health infrastructure bill or act to actually allow them to build health infrastructure.