Cabinet agrees to proceed with new maternity hospital
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Loading... - Gretel Meier
- 17 May 2022
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The Cabinet has agreed the legal framework to allow the new National Maternity Hospital to relocate to a site beside St Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin.
The legal framework has also been approved by the HSE board, as well as the boards of the NMH and St Vincent's Healthcare Group (SVHG).
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly hailed Government approval for the hospital relocation plan as an "important milestone" for maternity services in Ireland.
He said: "The new National Maternity Hospital is a critical piece of health infrastructure that will ensure women and infants are cared for in a state-of-the-art hospital that will help our clinicians deliver improved outcomes."
Mr Donnelly said the new legal framework would ensure all legally permissible services will be available in the new NMH.
It will also "prevent any influence, religious or otherwise, on the operation of the new hospital" and "safeguard the State's significant investment in the hospital".
Speaking following the Cabinet meeting, the minister said that there will never be any religious influence on the services that will be provided at the new NMH.
He said that the legal documents will be signed by all parties in the coming weeks and tender documents will then be drawn up.
Mr Donnelly also said that an annual report will be published for the first five years of the new hospital giving the details of the services provided there.
He said too that an annual report will be published for the first five years of the new hospital giving the details of the services provided there.
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said she is confident that the hospital will be secular and provide all legally permissible services.
Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said the last two weeks had provided absolute clarity on the secular status of the new hospital.
Meanwhile, the Master of the National Maternity Hospital has said the Cabinet decision comes as a "welcome relief to the doctors, nurses and midwives at the NMH who have worked to ensure that this vital national healthcare project proceeds".
Dr Shane Higgins said: "I want to again reassure those who have doubts or concerns that the NMH currently has no constraints on the procedures it offers patients, and this will continue when the hospital moves."
Decision to proceed wrong - Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said the Government's decision to proceed with the National Maternity Hospital is a wrong one.
She told the Dáil that the hospital will have a private landlord and Government made no "real effort" to secure the land.
Addressing the Taoiseach she said: "We now know that neither you nor the Minister for Health made any serious or meaningful attempt to bring this land into State ownership."
Responding, the Taoiseach said the hospital site will be in State ownership for 300 years and he told the Sinn Féin leader "you are wrong."
"Please stop now. It's time to wrap this part of it up now," Micheál Martin said.
He said the overall motivation behind the Government's decision is to provide modern maternity facilities which are required. Read More...
