The review into the cost overrun at the national children’s hospital should be widened to look at why it was decided to locate the project at St James’s Hospital, a prominent doctor has said. Prof Chris Fitzpatrick, former master of the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital, also predicted that the promised maternity hospital to be built adjacent to the children’s hospital at St James’s would never materialise. This will still be the case when the new children’s hospital is built, at least until a maternity hospital is built on the site. “Let’s not delude ourselves that we’ll get a world-class hospital for the €2 billion; there’ll never be a co-located maternity hospital, there’s no room to expand and the traffic will be awful. The Connolly for Kids group, which campaigned for the project to be sited at Connolly Hospital, has also called for the PwC review to revisit the decision to place the hospital at St James’s.

Source: The Irish Times February 05, 2019 00:56 UTC