IRELAND
Irish Independent
Richard Curran
April 27 2017 2:30 AM
The debacle around the new National Maternity Hospital has sparked an enormous debate about the role of the Catholic Church or Catholic religious orders in providing maternity services. The row is unlikely to be the last about the place and role of religious orders in the area of healthcare.
However, there is a wider issue around the role of the State and the question of value for money. The obvious question being asked is how could the State spend €300m building a new hospital that someone else would own?
The resultant shambles has now placed the future plan for locating the new hospital at St Vincent’s in doubt and – even more importantly – it runs the risk of delaying the delivery of this vital piece of social infrastructure.
It follows on from the omnishambles that was the location of the new National Childrens’ Hospital. I am not talking about the row over whether it should be at St James’s or not, but the fact that around €30m was spent on fees and consultants preparing the groundwork for it to be located in at the Mater Hospital site before it unravelled.
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