St Vincent’s university hospital has accused the National Maternity Hospital of trying to switch its relocation to the Mater after negotiations to move to St Vincent’s campus became deadlocked.
Jimmy Menton, chairman of St Vincent’s Healthcare Group (SVHG), told the Department of Health in a letter dated April 19 that the chairman and the master of the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) “sought accommodation” on the Mater site at a meeting with the Ireland East Hospital Group (IEHG), an umbrella body for 11 hospitals, including St Vincent’s and the Mater.
“This action raises serious concerns with us as it suggests that NMH is placing unspecified concerns held by its consultants above the bigger picture of patients’ interests,” Menton said.
Leo Varadkar, the outgoing health minister, issued an ultimatum to St Vincent’s and the NMH last week to progress the maternity hospital’s relocation to St Vincent’s Elm Park campus or risk losing €150m of allocated funding.
Copies of Menton’s letter were attached to a media statement SVHG released on Friday announcing he had written to Varadkar reiterating St Vincent’s commitment “to work with the [NMH] to overcome its concerns”.
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SVHG and NMH have been in a stand-off since last year over St Vincent’s requirement that NMH be subsumed into its corporate governance on the south Dublin campus. Two mediation processes have failed to resolve the impasse.
The NMH says it requested the meeting with Thomas Lynch, the IEHG chairman, and Mary Day, its chief executive, to ask their help in resolving the deadlock. Rhona Mahony, the NMH master, and Niall Doyle, its deputy chairman, attended.
“During that meeting, a discussion arose regarding alternatives in the event that the move to St Vincent’s did not proceed,” the NMH said. “This included a brief discussion regarding the Mater hospital. However, it was unanimously agreed that the co-location of NMH with St Vincent’s represents the best outcome, and the meeting resulted in the resolution that IEHG would lend every assistance to bring that to fruition.”
Lynch, who is also the Mater’s chairman, said: “We discussed alternatives to SVHG, including the possibility of the Mater campus. However, from the Mater’s perspective, a maternity hospital is no longer aligned with its published strategy of focusing exclusively on tertiary or quaternary adult high acuity activities.”
A 2012 plan to relocate the NMH to Bernard McNamara’s €1m Park development near St Vincent’s was abandoned the day before an agreement was to be signed because development agency IDA Ireland wanted the building for Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical multinational.
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The Department of Health, the HSE and the NMH had agreed the new maternity hospital would occupy the two front blocks of the development, which the National Asset Management Agency had taken over with McNamara’s loans.
A spokesman for James Reilly, then the health minister, confirmed that “the IDA conveyed to the department and to the minister they were interested in the site” but, he said, Reilly’s decision to cancel the plan was “driven by the need for best clinical outcomes”.
Novartis is currently renting one of the blocks on a seven-year lease.