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Lets be real here: The Children's Hospital is a scam

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    #332
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    IngazZagni wrote: »
    Please not this argument again. Lots was wrong with that idea. People seem to forget that it was healthcare industry experts that decided that this was the most appropriate location.

    Co-location is vital for the future success of this hospital.

    Co location was one of many critical issues. But I doubt they have said this if they'd realised at the time that this location would cost 2 billion and rising, with no end in sight. For no extra capacity in a flawed location, with little expansion capacity.

    It's like designing your own house Grand Designs style and realising the design is unaffordable. But going with it regardless.


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    #333
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    "...cut one's coat according to one's cloth ..."


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    #334
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Sleeper12 wrote: »
    It is though. They ploughed ahead building the wrong hospital in the wrong place. Most expensive hospital in the world and we haven't even gotten the final bill yet.

    They did it twice. Mater then this current site.


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    #335
    Markcheese
    Registered Users Posts: 8,464 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    beauf wrote: »
    They did it twice. Mater then this current site.

    Which "they" ?
    I have no idea who was over the actual construction contract and planning , some department in the HSE ? Or the department of health ? .But they hadn't built a major project in decades ..they were like innocent little lambs ... Dining with the big BAM wolf ...
    ( Mixing my fairy tales)
    Thing is governments have been NOT building this hospital for over 50 years ... 50 f#cking YEARS ... of kids not getting a children's hospital ..
    And someone is finally building it ...and yes it's gonna be paid for ...
    ( Honestly though, I can't see How BAM ever gets another state funded contract... Tenders are designed to include or exclude which ever company you like )

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



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    #336
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    They is the govt at first FF then FG


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    #337
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users Posts: 28,989 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Markcheese wrote: »
    ... Tenders are designed to include or exclude which ever company you like )

    How do you design a tender to exclude one commercial builder like BAM, and get it approved by legal, OGP and published?


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    #338
    Markcheese
    Registered Users Posts: 8,464 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    How do you design a tender to exclude one commercial builder like BAM, and get it approved by legal, OGP and published?

    Well for a start they always say lowest price does not always guarantee the contract ..
    ( Should have said "can be " not "are " )

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



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    #339
    Samsonsmasher
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 610 ✭✭✭Samsonsmasher


    Why wasn't this hospital built on a green field site beyond the M50? The location is a joke. It's a logistical nightmare to build there even without this crazy lockdown. And why aren't there regional hospitals with the facilties to care for sick kids? Would it not be better to have units in Galway Cork Waterford Galway or central like Athlone to spare people having to trek up to Dublin?


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    #340
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users Posts: 28,989 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Markcheese wrote: »
    Well for a start they always say lowest price does not always guarantee the contract ..

    How does that exclude one potential bidder?


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    #341
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Samsonsmasher wrote: »
    Why wasn't this hospital built on a green field site beyond the M50? The location is a joke. It's a logistical nightmare to build there even without this crazy lockdown. And why aren't there regional hospitals with the facilties to care for sick kids? Would it not be better to have units in Galway Cork Waterford Galway or central like Athlone to spare people having to trek up to Dublin?

    To every question including what's the budget, can we afford this, how long will it take, the only answer is...

    Location, location location.... sorry that should be co-location, co-location, co-location regardless of cost.


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    #342
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users Posts: 28,989 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Samsonsmasher wrote: »
    Why wasn't this hospital built on a green field site beyond the M50? The location is a joke. It's a logistical nightmare to build there even without this crazy lockdown. And why aren't there regional hospitals with the facilties to care for sick kids? Would it not be better to have units in Galway Cork Waterford Galway or central like Athlone to spare people having to trek up to Dublin?

    Which is more important - building a hospital that's easy to drive to, or building a hospital that provides the best medical care?


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    #343
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users Posts: 28,989 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    beauf wrote: »
    Co location was one of many critical issues. But I doubt they have said this if they'd realised at the time that this location would cost 2 billion and rising, with no end in sight. For no extra capacity in a flawed location, with little expansion capacity.

    It's like designing your own house Grand Designs style and realising the design is unaffordable. But going with it regardless.

    What's the connection between the James site and the escalating costs?


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    #344
    Pete_Cavan
    Registered Users Posts: 6,871 ✭✭✭Pete_Cavan


    Samsonsmasher wrote: »
    Why wasn't this hospital built on a green field site beyond the M50? The location is a joke. It's a logistical nightmare to build there even without this crazy lockdown. And why aren't there regional hospitals with the facilties to care for sick kids? Would it not be better to have units in Galway Cork Waterford Galway or central like Athlone to spare people having to trek up to Dublin?

    The whole point of this is that it is a highly specialised hospital with facilities and staff which are too expensive to replicate in multiple locations. It needs to be centralised in one location so that it is of sufficient scale. This is not a place for putting plasters on kids knees, it is for highly complex modern medicine which few children will need. It is the same all over the world, even bigger countries than us will have a single centre of excellence, complex medicine done in few locations and as you move down through the complexities it is offered in more locations. And no, Connolly and Tallaght do not have anything like the level of specialism as James's.

    Being on the James's site allows it to utilise existing specialist equipment and labs there, replicating these elsewhere would cost a lot more. Building it elsewhere means relocating or replicating a lot of James's or constantly transferring patients, neither of which are more attractive than simply co-locating.


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    #345
    PhilOssophy
    Registered Users Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭PhilOssophy


    Samsonsmasher wrote: »
    Why wasn't this hospital built on a green field site beyond the M50? The location is a joke. It's a logistical nightmare to build there even without this crazy lockdown. And why aren't there regional hospitals with the facilties to care for sick kids? Would it not be better to have units in Galway Cork Waterford Galway or central like Athlone to spare people having to trek up to Dublin?

    Because putting a hospital where only people can drive to on one of the most congested road networks in Europe would be absolute madness. At least here, it is linked to every major transport hub by a tram (1 stop from a train station serving well over 1/2 the country), people have options to get there and it is located with relatively high-density population, co-located beside a teaching hospital.

    The only discussion should have been whether it should have been beside whatever replaces Holles Street, not putting it on the M50.

    The location is the least of the problems here, what has gone on with BAM is a disgrace and they should never ever be given another job. They have absolutely screwed the Irish tax payer on several road projects by now through bidding low and making it up on changes, etc. We should put reputation as about 30% of the scoring system ang give BAM a 0 for this which will rule them out.


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    #346
    Ash.J.Williams
    Registered Users Posts: 21,021 ✭✭✭✭Ash.J.Williams


    PhilOssophy wrote: »
    Because putting a hospital where only people can drive to on one of the most congested road networks in Europe would be absolute madness. At least here, it is linked to every major transport hub by a tram (1 stop from a train station serving well over 1/2 the country), people have options to get there and it is located with relatively high-density population, co-located beside a teaching hospital.

    The only discussion should have been whether it should have been beside whatever replaces Holles Street, not putting it on the M50.

    The location is the least of the problems here, what has gone on with BAM is a disgrace and they should never ever be given another job. They have absolutely screwed the Irish tax payer on several road projects by now through bidding low and making it up on changes, etc. We should put reputation as about 30% of the scoring system ang give BAM a 0 for this which will rule them out.

    he said beyond the m50


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    #347
    PhilOssophy
    Registered Users Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭PhilOssophy


    Ash.J.Williams wrote: »
    he said beyond the m50

    Even more crazy then.


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    #348
    Geuze
    Registered Users Posts: 13,395 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    Samsonsmasher wrote: »
    Why wasn't this hospital built on a green field site beyond the M50? The location is a joke. It's a logistical nightmare to build there even without this crazy lockdown. And why aren't there regional hospitals with the facilties to care for sick kids? Would it not be better to have units in Galway Cork Waterford Galway or central like Athlone to spare people having to trek up to Dublin?

    The medical consultants would not travel outside the M50 to west Dublin.

    They tend to live in south Dublin.


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    #349
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Geuze wrote: »
    The medical consultants would not travel outside the M50 to west Dublin.

    They tend to live in south Dublin.

    We heard all this about WFH, and people all wanting to work in Dublin.

    https://www.thejournal.ie/daft-report-rents-5347631-Feb2021/

    I'd be curious how many consultants actually use public transport to get the current hospital which are all city center and within the M50.


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    #350
    Pete_Cavan
    Registered Users Posts: 6,871 ✭✭✭Pete_Cavan


    Geuze wrote: »
    The medical consultants would not travel outside the M50 to west Dublin.

    They tend to live in south Dublin.

    This just seems like a convenient way for people to squeeze in a bit of good old fashioned begrudgery into this. Have you anything to support it?

    Even if there is some truth to it, only a small fraction of the staff at the NCH will be consultants. The vast majority will be junior doctors, nurses (both of whom have little influence and are just told to get on with things regardless of conditions), admin, porters, catering, cleaning, maintenance, etc. Basically normal working people doing unglamorous jobs but keeping the whole operation running.

    They are also types of people more than happy to use public transport, forcing them all to drive in individual cars every day to get to work at a hospital on the already congested M50 would be a disaster.


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    #351
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    PhilOssophy wrote: »
    Even more crazy then.

    Whats crazy is how we are persisting with the dogma of people not driving to THIS hospital and ignoring the reality on the ground.

    In reality this will concentrate all the traffic from the previous dispersed hospitals in one location, all heading in the same direction as peak traffic, as much of it at peak times since there is a high % working and attending the hospital during office hours. All of it in an already grid locked location.

    But yeah, they'll all get public transport now.


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    #352
    PhilOssophy
    Registered Users Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭PhilOssophy


    beauf wrote: »
    Whats crazy is how we are persisting with the dogma of people not driving to THIS hospital and ignoring the reality on the ground.

    In reality this will concentrate all the traffic from the previous dispersed hospitals in one location, all heading in the same direction as peak traffic, as much of it at peak times since there is a high % working and attending the hospital during office hours. All of it in an already grid locked location.

    But yeah, they'll all get public transport now.

    All 1 mile of a change from Crumlin?

    I didn't say everybody will now get public transport. But people at least deserve an option. There are so many factors which I addressed in my post above, why don't you refute some of those other considerations other than driving a car?

    If you were driving the M7 for a number of weeks and were sitting half way down it stuck in traffic, I can bet your life you'd like to at least have some alternative as opposed to sitting in a car and not knowing what time you were going to get to Dublin at.

    But as I say, that is only 1 consideration in a hospital yet so many people don't seem to see beyond it.


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    #353
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Pete_Cavan wrote: »
    ...
    They are also types of people more than happy to use public transport, forcing them all to drive in individual cars every day to get to work at a hospital on the already congested M50 would be a disaster.

    Didn't seem to happy last time...

    https://siptuhealth.ie/siptu-members-vote-for-strike-action-in-st-james-hospital-car-parking-dispute/


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    #354
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users Posts: 28,989 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Geuze wrote: »
    The medical consultants would not travel outside the M50 to west Dublin.

    They tend to live in south Dublin.

    You'd better tell the Hermitage clinic to shut down so. And the Clane centre.


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    #355
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    PhilOssophy wrote: »
    All 1 mile of a change from Crumlin?

    I didn't say everybody will now get public transport. But people at least deserve an option. There are so many factors which I addressed in my post above, why don't you refute some of those other considerations other than driving a car?

    If you were driving the M7 for a number of weeks and were sitting half way down it stuck in traffic, I can bet your life you'd like to at least have some alternative as opposed to sitting in a car and not knowing what time you were going to get to Dublin at.

    But as I say, that is only 1 consideration in a hospital yet so many people don't seem to see beyond it.

    I don't know what its like at Crumlin. But I know around James, and it used to be on my commute when I cycled. Its a terrible place to get to. It one of those area's in Dublin I go out my way to avoid when planning a route to anywhere.

    Unfortunately the first step of most experiences in a hospital is getting there. Hard to avoid that step.


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    #356
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    The location doesn't matter now anyway. Ain't moving now.

    This was always going to be expensive. Infinitely more so in this location. Well you've got what you wanted.


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    #357
    PhilOssophy
    Registered Users Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭PhilOssophy


    beauf wrote: »
    I don't know what its like at Crumlin. But I know around James, and it used to be on my commute when I cycled. Its a terrible place to get to. It one of those area's in Dublin I go out my way to avoid when planning a route to anywhere.

    Unfortunately the first step of most experiences in a hospital is getting there. Hard to avoid that step.

    The first step of a hospital is putting it somewhere to get people to work in it.

    I used to drive through St. James in a previous life, the traffic is no worse, or better, than anywhere else in Dublin. Especially around the M50.

    But I repeat myself, people at least should have options. Putting a hospital on a green field site anywhere near the M50 would not give people any option, and the first Prime Time investigates would be about people without a car trying to get there.


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    #358
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users Posts: 28,989 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    beauf wrote: »
    The location doesn't matter now anyway. Ain't moving now.

    This was always going to be expensive. Infinitely more so in this location. Well you've got what you wanted.

    Again, what's the connection between the location and the cost?


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    #359
    PhilOssophy
    Registered Users Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭PhilOssophy


    beauf wrote: »
    The location doesn't matter now anyway. Ain't moving now.

    This was always going to be expensive. Infinitely more so in this location. Well you've got what you wanted.

    It is expensive because there was poor management of the procurement process. If a bidder is 140m cheaper or whatever it was than 3 other bidders who were within a few million of each other, alarm bells should have been ringing with the board.

    BAM played a 3-card trick, go in cheap and screw the HSE left right and centre once the job starts. That is why it is so expensive. I would bet my life that any reputable building contractor (e.g. Hegarty's, Sisk, etc) priced the job right and would have built it for roughly what they tendered for. BAM have history in this regard.


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    #360
    Northernlily
    Registered Users Posts: 2,823 ✭✭✭Northernlily


    In pre Covid times it could take 1hr and 30 minutes to reach the Maynooth junction from Galway City. It could take another 1hr 30 mins to get as far as James with the traffic whic gets even worse past the M4/M50 turn off.

    That location is appalling. James Connolly would have been better choice to serve the national interest. Surely specialist capabilities could have been transferred from James to there with an upgrade for Connolly.

    Looking at the BAM tweet with the picture and having travelled that commute, the area is so compacted, it would fill you with anxiety looking at it.

    Kip of a place too.


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    #361
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    PhilOssophy wrote: »
    The first step of a hospital is putting it somewhere to get people to work in it.

    ..and yet they had ballot for strike over that very issue, in this very location.
    PhilOssophy wrote: »
    I used to drive through St. James in a previous life, the traffic is no worse, or better, than anywhere else in Dublin. Especially around the M50.
    ....

    Well that kinda defeats the point that building it anywhere else would be much worse for accessibility then.


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