Minister for Health Simon Harris warned there was no simple solution if the National Maternity Hospital and St Vincent’s hospital “walk off the pitch” in what was an “unedifying spat”.
The Minister said patients were not served well in the row between the two hospitals, ostensibly about budgets, which has delayed a long-planned move by Holles Street hospital to a co-location site at St Vincent’s.
Mediate
Mr Harris has appointed the former head of the Workplace Relations Commission Kieran Mulvey to mediate between the hospitals, and “it’s important that we step back and we let Mr Mulvey and both these hospitals work on a solution”.
The Minister, who has visited the National Maternity Hospital, described it as an “entirely inappropriate, substandard building” and “utterly unacceptable”.
He said the two hospitals “are voluntary independent hospitals, and I cannot impose a solution”. He said “there is not an apparent plan B, and that’s why it’s important to get it right”.
Labour Senator Kevin Humphreys who raised the issue said they were facing a “turf war between two hospitals, an argument over a budget”.
“The argument isn’t about the health and wellbeing of up to 10,000 babies and their mothers.” He said 10 delivery wards deliver this number of babies when there should be 24 wards.
