Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As I said, the women's health action plan deals with the issue of the national maternity hospital. There is rightfully a huge amount of interest in the national maternity hospital. The creation of the new national maternity hospital is the greatest infrastructure investment by the State in women's health. We have to recognise that we are building a once-in-a-generation world class national maternity hospital. We do not just have to look at Holles Street but also at the Coombe and the need for further development and the building of a new hospital there. We have much catching up to do with maternity services in the State, not just at Holles Street. It goes beyond that. The new national maternity hospital is a key element.

This hospital will ensure world class facilities are available for women, girls and babies for generations to come. The hospitals have worked together for decades. Approximately 40% of consultant staff at the National Maternity Hospital are employed by or work between the two hospitals at present. This creates the ideal platform to achieve clinical ideals of co-location. Everybody has accepted the value of co-location in this project. It is vital to recognise the importance of co-location of maternity services. Maternity and neonatal care are among the branches of medicine with the highest risk. The co-location with adult and acute services will ensure that mothers have access to a full range of medical and support services via corridor linkage. All too often, we hear of issues with delivery in maternity hospitals, the major difficulties that have arisen, and the high risk in these locations. It is important that we move to a situation through co-location where we will have the maximum services available in any one campus.

Annually, several hundred pregnant women at Holles Street require diagnostic, medical and surgical intervention that is not available at the current hospital site. They require transfer to St. Vincent's University Hospital, either as inpatients or outpatients. Every year, six to ten women are transferred to St. Vincent's University Hospital because they are critically ill and require intensive care that is not available on the site in Holles Street. This fragmentation of care between two sites disrupts care in some of the highest risk clinical cases in the State. The new hospital will provide women with direct access to a wide range of medical, surgical and diagnostic services and facilities.

It will facilitate a modern campus approach to healthcare, where a range of medical entities operate in close proximity to each other to increase the breadth and depth of services concentrated together with close alignment of clinicians.

In general, the State does not own voluntary hospital buildings. I want to say that again. In general, we do not own voluntary hospital buildings. However, it is not unusual for the State to invest in voluntary hospital campuses as part of ensuring facilities are fit for purpose. Needless to say, any investment by the State on voluntary hospital campuses must be done with all necessary assurances around the safeguarding of the State’s investment and the delivery of public services. It is important to point out, and this gets lost in this debate, that in this particular case we are relocating one voluntary hospital to the campus of another voluntary hospital, in a hospital building that is owned by the State. That is a clear position of what is happening. The State will own the hospital building. We have one voluntary hospital moving to the campus of another voluntary hospital.

A legal framework will provide the necessary clarity and assurances for the State. The legal framework will deal with at the State’s core objectives regarding this project, which are worth noting again. These are, first, that clinically appropriate services that are legally permissible are provided for women who need them in the new national maternity hospital. This is, as the Minister said, not just a red-line issue. It is an issue for everybody in the State that that should be the case. We also want to prevent any undue influence, religious or otherwise, in the operation of the new hospital. We want to protect the State's investment in relation to capital, revenue and services provision at the new hospital for the public good.

I understand the points that have been made and I can understand the key issues that are being highlighted by a number of Deputies here. However, we can continue having this debate, or we can continue with having the services provided. We all know the timescale that it takes to build a hospital of this nature. It goes on for several years. Some preparatory work has already been done on the site. As the Minister said earlier, that has now been completed. It is important that we move carefully, but as swiftly as possible, to ensure those legal agreements are put in place to cover those three arrangements, such that the project can then move on through the normal process. That will ultimately provide much better services than are currently arranged and are available in the current situation.

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