Compulsory purchase of NMH site could delay project by 15 years, says Stephen Donnelly
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Compulsory purchasing the proposed site of the new National Maternity Hospital could delay the project by another 15 years, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said.
“If we were to start again, there'll be no guarantee of co-location, which means, less good specialist care for women. And I think we could well be adding 10 to 15 years to the project. And I simply do not believe that we should do that. We've been talking about this for long enough we need to get this hospital built,” he said.
Confirming reports in the , Mr Donnelly said his legal advise is that a move to compulsory purchase the land could “add years” to the project’s development and such a scenario is not acceptable.
Mr Donnelly said that despite widespread concern that the State will not own the land upon which the new hospital will be built, the proposed plan will return to Cabinet next week and he expects it to be approved.
He said the new hospital will provide all of the services allowable under law and that it will be fully independent.
“Not only have we ensured that the hospital will be fully independent, we've gone a really important step further and ensured that the hospital under its own constitution must provide must provide all services under law,” he said.
Mr Donnelly said that because Ireland does not have a good track record when it comes to the church and women's reproductive health, people around the country are nervous.
That’s why he and his colleagues have secured a 300-year lease and increased State representation on the board of the new hospital.
While the State will be charged a nominal rent of €10 a year, there are strict conditions otherwise the full rent of €850,000 a year will be charged.
“What St Vincent's have done is they've said you can have the site for the next 300 years for free. It's €10 a year. The only stipulation on us is that we the state remain as the people using the site and secondly, that we use it for public health care. So that's the stipulation,” he said.
On the issue of the State seeking to own the land, Mr Donnelly said it would be his preference that the land be bought but St Vincent’s Hospital Group rejected such requests as is their right.
He said that the slight delay in approving this plan has allowed for documents to be published and for people to have their concerns addressed.
Earlier, the Taoiseach insisted that fears around the National Maternity Hospital proposals have been "comprehensively addressed," and the project will go ahead.
Micheál Martin confirmed that the Government will press ahead with the plan to build the new hospital on the site of St Vincent's Hospital, despite concerns around the ownership structure and delivery of all services.
"The new hospital will be more secular in governance than the existing hospital has been in its history, by that I mean in terms of governance, but all of the legally permissible services are being performed at the moment in Holles St," he said.
"The Government will be pressing ahead with this. We've published seven documents now, which are substantive, and which really do address the issues that were raised earlier about control and all of that."
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly will meet Fine Gael TDs and senators who have raised questions around the proposals tomorrow evening before attending the Oireachtas Health Committee on Wednesday morning.
But Mr Martin stressed that concerns have been "comprehensively addressed" pointing to the constitution of the new hospital which he said states that the directors of the hospital are "obliged to carry out all legal services permissible within the State, and also the Minister can direct them to so do and they must comply."
Mr Martin added: "In my view, the current hospital is unacceptable, it's not fit for purpose for the women of Ireland today. The new hospital would be a very significant advance on the current hospital in terms of extra inpatient beds, a fantastic new world-class neonatal unit with far more cots and individual rooms, which helps the outcomes of premature newborns from as early as 23 weeks. I mean, it's not good enough that we're in confined spaces in the current neonatal. So, I think that part of the debate has been lost."
He said the co-location model of having the new maternity hospital on the same site as an acute adult hospital was first recommended 20 years ago.
"At the moment, we have women been transferred through the streets of Dublin, who could be in a critical condition, who would be open to infection. In the new hospital you will have a corridor, you will have a connection, you'll have the delivery rooms in the new hospital co-located very adjacent to the intensive care units of Vincent's," he told programme.