“I see no advantages whatsoever in co-location with St James’s with the present mix of specialties”

– Jimmy Sheehan, Orthopaedic surgeon and founder of three adult hospitals; the Blackrock, Galway and Hermitage Clinics

  Co-location with adult hospitals offers very little benefit to children’s hospitals, as expertise is confined to adult medicine. Most new children’s hospitals built internationally are stand-alone, for example:

• The Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool which opened in 2015
• Melbourne Children’s Hospital which opened in 2011
• The new Children’s Hospital in Orlando which opened in 2012

It is widely claimed that the new Children’s Hospital will benefit from being co-located with the Adult hospital at St James’s due to the specialties there. This is not the case. The current mix of adult specialties available at St James’s Hospital does not offer any further benefit to the proposed Children’s Hospital. Crumlin Children’s Hospital already has 39 specialties, more than any other hospital in the country. Bringing the three Dublin children’s hospitals together is what will significantly enhance the breadth and depth of service to children, not co-location with adult services. Co-location with an adult hospital is beneficial, however, for mothers requiring treatment throughout pregnancy and labour due to medical conditions in either the mother or her baby. Therefore, where there is a maternity hospital it would be important to have an adjacent adult hospital. Such a service will be provided to women by the Connolly Adult Hospital when the Rotunda Maternity Hospital relocates there.

St James’s

Connolly

Very few existing adult specialities at St James’s will benefit the Children’s Hospital, and these are not the critical ones. Many specialties at St James’s are laboratory-based, where benefit to patients is not dependent on proximity. Specialties identified as being beneficial are neurosurgery, organ transplantation, neuro radiology and spinal surgery. However, these specialties are not located in St James’s.

The 400-bed Connolly Adult Hospital is currently being upgraded. Connolly is a sister hospital of the 800-bed Beaumont Hospital. Beaumont Hospital has specialities in neurosurgery, organ transplantation, neuro radiology and spinal surgery. If the Children’s Hospital is sited in Connolly, Beaumont will transfer these specialities to Connolly.