Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for choosing this Topical Issue debate. It is an important issue not only for Cork but for the Munster area. As Minister of State at the Department of Health and as a Cork-based Deputy, Deputy Jim Daly will be quite familiar, I imagine, with this issue and will have an interest in it. I imagine the Government does not want issues around a children's hospital to be raised any further but this is an important issue for the people that we represent.

As the Minister of State is aware, the national model of care for paediatric services has identified Cork University Hospital, CUH, for development as the biggest regional unit for the care of children outside of the national children's hospital. However, this development is predicated on the centralisation of children's acute hospital care in Cork University Hospital. The infrastructure required is not currently in place. In fact, no upgrade of the inpatient facilities has occurred since the original Cork Regional Hospital, as it then was, was opened in 1978, over 40 years ago. A planned new inpatient unit has been stalled at the planning stage since 2015. Some believe it is now threatened by the significant overrun in the national children's hospital. That is the first reassurance I am seeking from the Minister. I want to know that this project will not be affected in any way by that.

This project has been known as the Munster children's hospital. The funding envelope for this project at Cork University Hospital is between €34 million and €38 million. The project includes two below-ground floors to accommodate four theatres and associated facilities.

CUH already delivers tertiary care across several specialties that other regional centres have to refer to Dublin. It is delivering specialist care as close to home as possible for paediatric neurology, respiratory, cystic fibrosis, endocrinology and diabetes, allergy and cardiology services. Children within Cork and Kerry have the lowest number of cases occupying secondary and tertiary beds in Crumlin and Temple Street hospitals. Over 90% of our children are cared for their entire treatment locally in Cork University Hospital. The national children's hospital cannot afford for this caseload to change due to a lack of local infrastructure. In fact, it has not been designed with such capacity in mind.

CUH has already had €9 million invested in its modern paediatric outpatient and day-case suite - I wish to acknowledge that. Other charity moneys raised by the staff of the unit are being used to keep phases 2, 3, and 4 of the project moving towards a planning application. It is hoped this will proceed later this year.

The ongoing erosion of surgical and anaesthetic skills is a genuine existential threat to the delivery of all paediatric medical care in Cork. This is what clinicians are telling me. It is not some politician making these claims - they come from clinicians. If these skills are lost, the hospital would have to be immediately closed to all acute admissions and the CUH emergency department would have to be closed to all paediatric cases.

Where would they go in that scenario? It is a red line from their perspective. No airway support means no acute medical care for critically ill children in Cork. Cork hospitals perform more than 5,000 operations on children under general anaesthetic per annum. Crumlin performs approximately 22,000. There is a significant differential in the complexity of the cases. The national children's hospital has been funded for 22 or 24 theatres to do that number. It could not absorb the numbers currently being provided for in Cork. I am looking for clarity about where this project stands. I have been trying to pursue it through parliamentary questions and with the HSE. I am not really getting much reassurance that this project will advance and I hope that the Minister of State can provide that.

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