Our page has been online for 1 month tonight, 2700 likes so we are encouraged by the fantastic support we are receiving. We need you to further our cause by sharing our page on your own pages. AS mentioned before we would appreciate all messages of support, ideas, publicity and suggestions to further our cause. Probablt the best thing we could ask people to do is to send a letter, email or talk with you local TD, Politician, councillor and tell them we are not happy with this decision. THe following is a copy of our letter to An Taoiseach, and minister for health Leo Varadkar. Taoiseach, I am writing this letter today to raise my concerns regarding the proposed development of the new children’s hospital at the St James site in Dublin. My experiences of this states health care for our sick children has been very disheartening. We have a daughter Sophia who is 8 years of age, she is a beautiful girl that has her fair share of problems. Sophia was born with Cerebral Palsy & Arthrogryposis which means she has been using Crumlin hospital since she was 5 days old. Recently she has developed Scoliosis while waiting 14 months for her new wheelchair. Even at this stage (19months) she cannot sit comfortably in her chair which causes daily distress. Part of the reason for the protracted process is that all the staff that deal with fitting and adapting her chair and equipment are so busy with their enormous work load that they can only arrange 1 appointment a month. Now I believe that there is a HSE embargo that prevents the hiring of much needed staff on the front line. I must point out that all of Sophias carers and team are brilliant with her and do their best to accommodate us in every way possible. They are undoubtedly overworked. We have spent weeks in crumlin for surgery’s, emergency’s and check-ups and although the staff are fantastic we have rarely been able to drive straight into the car park and unpack our daughter and her equipment. On one occasion while she was in intensive care we got parking tickets because there was no space in the car park and we had to park in the street. The building is so old and parts of it are barely suitable for new wheelchair and a buggy to pass by. The clinics we attend are generally packed to the gills, take 2-3 hours and if we are lucky enough to get into the car park we pay €3.60 per hour for the privilege. WE are fed up using services that are adding stress to our already stressful lives. Our concerns with the proposed new hospital at St James are as follows. #The extent of car-parking that is proposed with the new hospital is inadequate and the overall number of car-parking spaces which is intended to be provided for the site to cater for the demands of the existing hospital, proposed children’s hospital & future maternity hospital falls well short, #There are serious planning issues associated with the site and there is a significant risk of permission being refused by An Bord Pleanala, as happened previously with the Mater Hospital site. #There is inadequate space available on site to cater for future expansion of the children’s hospital. Paediatric hospitals typically require expansion capability in excess of 25% of their initial size, which is not achievable on this site. #The presence of unknown underground services throughout the site create the risk of causing unforeseen delay and disruption to demolition and construction activities. #The location of St James means that there is up to 45 min extra journey time for patients coming from outside the city centre location. Over 90% of patients travel to the children’s hospitals by car. 70% from outside Dublin. #The added costs of building in a centre city location cannot be justified as there are no real benefits for our sick children and their family’s. 50 -100million more would be better spent on SNA’s and help for our sick children, front line nurses and carers. #the extra time that building city centre will add to this project is un needed.. WE have already listened to successive governments promise us our new hospital from 1993. That’s 20 years pondering. We are making our concerns clear to you and feel that a consultation process with the family’s that are directly involved with using the services would have been of huge benefit to the process. We would like you address our concerns and explain all the benefits of St James site so that we may better understand the governments decision to go ahead with St James site. We are not just concerned about the next term in office, we are thinking on the future treatment and care of this country’s sick and unfortunate children.The worst possible outcome would be that we have a brand new hospital that doesn’t suit the needs of the people that will be using it.. We would appreciate a full explanation on how our government plans to spend our hard earned tax on a project that seems likely to fail the people its designed for.. Regards, Aaron Daly
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 22:15:44 +0000