National Children's Hospital

pinkypinky

Does anyone know exactly where they mean?

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0416/swords-site-proposed-for-childrens-hospital.html

Wishbone Ash

I think it's to the west of the dual carriageway north of the Balheary Road probably near to where the Metro North Terminus was/is intended to be.

There's a related thread here already:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056572848

Beasty

Threads merged

Beasty

BostonB

Heres a new one,

‘Cheaper’ proposal to build Children’s Hospital on Phoenix Park site

http://www.thejournal.ie/cheaper-proposal-to-build-childrens-hospital-on-phoenix-park-site-450328-May2012/

Love the way the media choose not to put Phoenix Park RACECOURSE site in the title.

Developers really chasing this a the next cash cow.

Fyr.Fytr

There was one last week on the N32, assuming the old Belcamp college site, which would include relocation of Beaumont hospital

Have also heard talk of Connolly Hospital (now linked with Beaumont) being added to the list

Mr Simpson

Phoenix Park Racecource seems a mad location to me. I was reading the N32 proposal, and imo I don't think its a bad one. If fully built it would have tri-location, very close to the m50, large local population, not too far from the city centre and plans included a Dart link. It would only be feasible if all aspects of the plan were built. Its also a huge site.

BostonB

Co-incidentally on the ministers door step. Hard to look past that to see the merits of that location on its own. Why on earth do they want to relocate Beaumont hospital?

The problem is the need to score these locations on the same criteria. I'm not really seeing any quantified metrics being done on these proposed locations. For example a weighting for being close to the city center vs central for the whole population. Average journey times at peak. How much land exactly available. Things like that.

I know nothing about the Belcamp location relative to the other locations to make any sort of a judgement on it.

BostonB

mmcn90 wrote: »

Phoenix Park Racecource seems a mad location to me. I was reading the N32 proposal, and imo I don't think its a bad one. If fully built it would have tri-location, very close to the m50, large local population, not too far from the city centre and plans included a Dart link. It would only be feasible if all aspects of the plan were built. Its also a huge site.

Pretty much most of that (other than tri location) applies to the Racecourse location. Yet one is mad and the other isn't. Why?

When talking about tri location on the mater site there was a lot of discussion about how useful that is, and the specifics of what facilities in current adult hospital are currently used by childrens hospitals. I don't know the details of it, only that its trotted out a lot, but I've not seen any details on how that works currently.

Mr Simpson

TBH I'm not an expert on this, just looking on with interest. It seems to have easier access by road. Also tri-location imo is hugely important. Also imho Beaumount is on a site that is just not big enough for its needs, and will be unable to expand any further.

BostonB

Other sites are closer to the M50 if you think thats important.

How can you say tri-location is important, if you don't know the details of what shared services they currently use? I don't know either, I'm just throwing it out there, that if its so important where's the details of this, in the proposals? Where's the traffic studies at peak times.

Mr Simpson

As I said Im no expert, maybe I was sold on the idea too quickly. The only consistent thing I've heard is that tri-location is important, thats coming from every side of the argument. I don't know, for the time being I like the proposal for belcamp, partly because it involves moving beaumount, I bloody hate that place.

BostonB

Beware of official reports with lots of buzzwords and short on facts. The mater site was chosen based on some very dubious reports.

Zagato

Regarding the new site mentioned today, I think it would be ridiculous to move to such small greenfield site.


On tri-location:
As far as I can make out tri-location is certainly a bonus, when we have a relatively small population, as it allow for specific tertiary/quaternary sevices to be provided better. However if all of these services are not available in the adult hospital - then I imagine this is less useful.

Some services that might be provided to adults + children by the same people would be

Transplant Surgery
Cardiac Surgery
Haemato-oncology
Metabolic Medicine
Neurosurgery
Burns unit

So if the expertise for Cardiac surgery is in the Mater, Liver transplants are in St Vincent's, Renal transplants and Neurosurgery in Beaumont, Malignant Haematology and Burns in St James's, well what is the point of tri-locating the hospital with one of these hospitals when you will not have all of the services co-located. If a new adult hospital was built (no money for this at present) I can't see them moving all of these services away from the established hospitals very easily.

The other issue with relocating hospitals is moving staff which would have to be taken into consideration. I am unsure of what the plans are to staff the new Children's Hospital (will Crumlin translocate, or part of Crumlin and Temple st.) Anyway moving such large amounts of staff can be tricky, and how far they are moved will be an issue -although not a big discussion point.
How many years was Beaumont left empty while the staff of St Laurence's and Jervis St. Hospitals were agreeing terms to move*?




*I am not absolutely sure of what the delay was (was pretty young at the time, but as I understand it was difficulty with moving staff)

BostonB

I think that Neurosurgery in Beaumont and not in the Mater was one of the points that came up in relation to the Mater site and tri-location. Another was research was I think was located not in the Mater either. Then bringing all these to the mater site wasn't possible because of the space restrictions.

Be interesting to see the actual numbers on the space that is available on each of these sites.

Fyr.Fytr

BostonB wrote: »

Co-incidentally on the ministers door step. Hard to look past that to see the merits of that location on its own. Why on earth do they want to relocate Beaumont hospital?

The problem is the need to score these locations on the same criteria. I'm not really seeing any quantified metrics being done on these proposed locations. For example a weighting for being close to the city center vs central for the whole population. Average journey times at peak. How much land exactly available. Things like that.

I know nothing about the Belcamp location relative to the other locations to make any sort of a judgement on it.

The Beaumont site is no where near big enough, bits have been tacked on for years in portacbins, the new St Lukes Radiology buidling etc and with the building of the new actue psychiatric unit there just isnt space for any further expansion

ronan45

The best location imo


http://www.independent.ie/national-news/connolly-now-frontrunner-in-childrens-hospital-bid-3228182.html

shoegirl

Madpaddy79 wrote: »

As there are no hospitals in NCD as it stands, why would there be outrage? Only section of Dublin without a hospital. Think it would be a very suitable location, m1 / m50 links nearby. Plus the land is pretty much worthless, so they could get a good deal on price.

You would think so, but the hullabuloo over the primary health care sites would suggest that most people think either a) Swords/Balbriggan are walking distance from Dublin city centre and so don't need ANY services or b) its a bog out here and there is nothing in it so therefore there should be no services at all. God help us that some tiny town with 300 population should be put behind an area with a population of 100k+!!! Wouldn't that be dreadful now!!!

As to where Childrens Hospital is - remember, its a national service - so it needs national access. We have very poor public transport options in the north county, so I'm afraid no site meets that criteria. It sounds all nice but really, there is a requirement for public transport users and teaching hospital, so I don't think this would work best in NCD.

shoegirl

mmcn90 wrote: »

Phoenix Park Racecource seems a mad location to me. I was reading the N32 proposal, and imo I don't think its a bad one. If fully built it would have tri-location, very close to the m50, large local population, not too far from the city centre and plans included a Dart link. It would only be feasible if all aspects of the plan were built. Its also a huge site.

Plus its a public park. It would be screwing up limited green space so maybe not a great location.

shoegirl

james2006 wrote: »

The fact that the government is now considering 11 possible sites - some which are Nama-owned) including the Elm Park site in Booterstown is a brilliant idea.

For anyone who doesn't know how large Elm Park is : It's a huge site with five or six huge state of the art office blocks. While there are a few tenants in each block, (Allianz, and a few residential tenants, the vast majority of the entire site is a ghost development.

Here's an idea of how large each of the five or six blocks are. They are surrounded by a vast portion of land which would give the government the option of even more development within the site (which wouldn't be needed however). There is already sufficient development on the site.

http://www.let.ie/commercial-property/Block-HQ3-Elm-Park-Offices-Dublin-4-Co-Dublin/79279

Development within the five office blocks had been abandoned at the very final stages of completion - they just all need to be properly fitted out, which of course provides a "blank slate" for the developers of the new hospital.

It was reported that the Government will be spending up to 200 million euro building the new hospital. It would save the Governemnt so much money if they chose this site.


It meets all of the criteria need to be eligible for the National Childrens Hospital.


1. Co -Location with a teaching hospital - it is situated within walking distance of St. Vincents Hospital

2. Transport Links - The site is situated along the N11. The Dart is easily accessible also.

3. Although there would be construction noise (for the interiors of the blocks), this site is situated away from most residential areas, the noise impact would be very low.

It's a no-brainer to choose this site. If the government decides on a greenfield site, or the Mater hospital (or even the Coombe hospital), they will have missed a great opportunity to save the taxpayer millions.

There is no need to build anything from scratch if this site is chosen. The development is ready to go in regards to the building phase, the interior of the blocks just need to be developed more. - its basically a skeleton interior currently.

Although the Government would have to buy the development from the developer- it would be at a reduced cost and nowhere near the 200 million euro foreseen cost.

Have to agree here, its a major teaching hospital, plenty of current space.

Only thing is future expansion could be constrained and its an awful place to get to in a car.

LeoB

shoegirl wrote: »

Have to agree here, its a major teaching hospital, plenty of current space.

Only thing is future expansion could be constrained and its an awful place to get to in a car.

Parking and access are considerations here also which has ben dealth with in previous posts. IMO a disaster of a site to suit a minority.

Anyway looks like it wont be in NCD anyway. Blanchardstown look to me a good site for a national childrens hospital and is easily accessed by residents of DCN and the rest of the population

rubadubduba

I think Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown wood be a disater, look at all the sliproads leading to the entrance on the n3 and m50, comming from the snugbourgh road on to the n3 heading east the sliproad runs into the sliproad for the hospital, its going to be busy there and probably tails back coming from m50 south sliproad heading into the hospital.
If they run a luas line into ringsend where the old bottle factory is it would be ideal, close to port tunnell and link to m50 also near to train.

BostonB

Drag everyone through the traffic to avoid the traffic. Or get a train that doesn't exist.

RobFowl

BostonB wrote: »

Drag everyone through the traffic to avoid the traffic. Or get a train that doesn't exist.

There's no ideal location it's the least worst option really thats going to be picked. The Belcamp site with room for a new maternity hosp and adult hosp would be ideal in terms of location. The Connolly site already has an adult hospital although with very few specialities. Developing that and transferring some of the specialites form Beaumont seems to me the way forward (with one of the maternity hospitals moving there over the next few years as well).
Every one will have a strong opinion on this though and ultimately a decision will have to be made......

BostonB

I don't think it should be subjective.

I assume they can do a measurement of traffic flow and capacity at peak and off peak and also journey times across the city (or country) from say 8 points of the compass to the location, off peak and on peak, do the same with bus lanes, and train access. Give everything weightings and score accordingly.

But to say location X is poor, because of traffic, then suggest location Y which causes you to travel through location X to get to it, can't make common sense, especially if it doesn't have a train line near it, and other locations do. If something doesn't have a train line, or a luas line it should also be weighted accordingly. That said the vast majority of journeys to the current hospital are NOT by public transport, so it should be weighted less as a result.

Co location is another thing that shouldn't be subjective. If there are advantages to co location, they should be identified and weighted. But some of have suggested there aren't that many specialities that are that common to some of these co located sites. Why there isn't a black and white list of these and some idea of volume traffic received from the current hospital to these other locations, seems odd to me. I can only assume it wasn't done so clearly as it may painted co-location with the mater much less favourably than a sweeping generalisation about co-location might other wise suggest.

Basically there's a lot of smoke and mirrors and very little hard facts and stats about these locations. Which is pretty eye raising for the money involved and importance of the project.

LeoB

Connolly has rail near by which would be a help. Yes there is a major junction outside the door but they could easily divert traffic over the road towards NAC and back down its own lane into the grounds. While most trips to hospitals are not by public transport where will the people park in the city? Its a mess trying to get on street parking and the car parks are to expensive. Connolly has the space for car parking and a nominal rate for people attending for a medical appointment. Visitors could use a seperate car park and not ran by a company who go around clamping>

I think it more easily accessable for more of the people with room for expansion.

martinn123

If reports are accurate, may be between Belcamp, and Connolly in Blanchardstown

Given recent controversary, over the Primary care sites, will Dr James award this to Dublin North, will the Labour Party be happy with the biggest Srtuctural Investment, in the State going to his own constituency.

Owned by NAMA, the purchase can be shown to be cost neutral, to the State, at Belcamp, and the building costs coming from the sale of Lottery.

Be prepared for a huge contraversy, if he gives it to DCN, and remember

'' All Politics are Local''

http://www.cisireland.com/NewsItem.aspx?NewsId=2997

BostonB

Theres also this...

Eamon Gilmore bypasses James Reilly on children's hospital decision

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/eamon-gilmore-bypasses-james-reilly-on-childrens-hospital-decision-3270040.html

It is the indo though...

Mr Simpson

Is Belcamp in his constituency now? It wasn't in Dublin North before, with new changes is it Dublin Fingal (his constituency) or Dublin Bay North?

martinn123

BostonB wrote: »

Theres also this...



http://www.independent.ie/national-news/eamon-gilmore-bypasses-james-reilly-on-childrens-hospital-decision-3270040.html

It is the indo though...

Kenny puts Gilmore down,
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/govt-will-use-dolphin-report-only-to-decide-on-hospital-site-571548.html

Say's Dolphin Report will be the decider.........(and Dr james's political requirements of course)

T-Maxx

Connolly is the ideal site.

There really are no other objective alternatives.