Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 17 December 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children

Acute Hospital Services: Discussion

11:15 am

Mr. Michael O'Flynn:

I assure the Chairman they will be coming in on many of the issues. I thank members for their comments, kind remarks and observations. The questions are varied and many and I took note of many of the comments that have been made. I will deal with a few issues regarding the question of the site and then I will turn to Professor John Higgins. I perceive the responses as being divided into those pertaining to reconfiguration and others that are touching on the system, which is not why we are before the joint committee. I will leave it to my colleague, Mr. Gerry O'Dwyer, as to how much he does or does not wish to comment on some of these issues at this meeting. As people are aware, my approach always has been to be open and frank about anything asked of me. If we can be helpful, that is why we are at this meeting.

As for the board, when Professor John Higgins invited me on day one to chair this grouping, everybody we asked agreed to serve. Many of them were not from Cork or might have had Cork connections, but it demonstrates the interest people have in being involved and in helping.

This should not be ignored by the public system.

I will address the issues about the site quickly. As Deputy Mitchell O'Connor and Senator Gilroy referenced, we cannot have happen what happened with the children's hospital. Partly because I had a large interest in the children's hospital, having been on the board of the Children's Medical & Research Foundation in Crumlin for the past 15 or more years, I have a great deal of experience in this respect. I ended up in my position because I was seen to have only been involved with a Dublin hospital, albeit a national one, and I was invited to participate. I feel strongly and passionately about health, but everyone should be prepared to help. As to my involvement in Crumlin, I had a major interest in where the new hospital's site would be.

This cannot be political. No political grouping should believe it must be. The 20, 30 or 40-year vision for the region is so critical that there must be a site selection process. Let us be frank in that we have no public transport in Cork other than buses. We do not have trains or any other system. We must be practical and realise that, other than bus connections and good roads, the site selection will not be significantly influenced by public transport considerations. That said, we have not excluded or included any location. Having seen what happened in the case of the Mater, though, the selection of which I was against at the time because it was unsuitable, let the current site be what it will be. Since the process is under way, it would not be appropriate to comment, but we cannot afford delays that will hold up urgent projects.

Professor Higgins will go into this matter in more detail, but there is a need and it would be a crying shame if we did not progress with the site selection in the Cork area, devise criteria and arrive at a system to find the right site in the right location. It must be accessible to Cork University Hospital, CUH, for them to work hand in hand. Since Cork gets gridlocked like everywhere else, we must be practical about this. We cannot afford it to be otherwise. We have been spending money in recent years. I held this discussion with the prior Minister for Health when our engagement was at that point. We cannot justifiably spend money on brownfield sites and difficult buildings at existing hospitals.

One must plan ahead. The word we use is "Modular". I have seen good examples of it in Europe, particularly in Finland. A building can be created that is extensible. It is not modular in the sense of prefab modules. A point was raised about site costs. One can create car parks and buildings to be extended, so one should not create something that is not easily extended. A modular structure allows for extensions to be made in a way that has no impact on operations. It is designed so that, over a period of 15 or 20 years, extensions can be added continually without anyone realising it is a building site. I contend that some of the CUH site is overdeveloped. There is no point in saying otherwise. We must get away from that situation. I feel strongly in this regard.

We must consider a large site, albeit one that does not initially intimidate based on costs. Hospitals should be accommodated in areas where developments should not be accommodated. This would give them a special position. We would not want the land bought to be sold for a hospital. We must ensure we get the criteria right, the site selection process right and people involved who understand that business and can lead it. We should not end up in the planning crux that affected the Mater site and was predicted by a number of people.

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