There is a risk of a somewhat tired reaction to the news of yet another poorly performing hospital. But when it is the flagship National Maternity Hospital in Dublin which its de facto chief executive admits is "unfit for purpose", then complacency is not an option.
Holles Street hospital’s long and distinguished record as a centre of excellence does not excuse the breaches of patient safety identified by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) when it found evidence of overcrowding and poor hygiene during an inspection last October.
Although the issue of overcrowding may not be a surprise given the cramped location of the 19th century hospital building and the high volume of births which far exceed its capacity, the nature of preventable risk to the 9,000 babies born there annually and their mothers certainly is.
There is simply no excuse for the quality of cleaning in the delivery ward being found below an acceptable standard on the day of inspection. The finding of blood splashes on beds and walls in patient rooms is equally disturbing. And the failure to properly label anaesthetic drugs and intravenous infusions cannot be blamed on poor infrastructure; rather it represents poor professional practice and is an open invitation for harm to occur to patients.
The defence of hospital master Dr Rhona Mahony that the hospital had no major bloodstream infection in five years is hardly reassuring. The past, unfortunately, is no guarantor of the future when it comes to patient safety.
In fairness to Holles St and those working there, the urgent need for it to relocate to a bigger and better infrastructure has not been matched by alacrity on the part of the Department of Health or its planned host St Vincent's hospital. The failure to lodge a planning application for the new maternity hospital is inexplicable.
But it is the attitude of senior hospital managers that its deficiencies, which in the words of the Hiqa inspectors, “appear to be tolerated and accepted as the day-to-day reality for the hospital”, must be addressed as a matter of urgency.