A fresh row has erupted between the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) and two of Ireland’s leading obstetricians following last week’s announcement by the Religious Sisters of Charity that they no longer intend owning the new hospital on the St Vincent’s campus.
Chris Fitzpatrick, a former master of the Coombe Hospital who resigned in April from the hospital’s development board because of the nuns’ planned ownership, has said he will not return unless the NMH is declared the outright owner. He wants St Vincent’s Healthcare Group (SVHG), which owns the south Dublin campus, to renounce ownership of the new hospital too.
Fitzpatrick said the Catholic order’s decision to relinquish ownership of the new facility provides an opportunity to renegotiate the agreement between the NMH and SVHG, in order to ensure the maternity hospital has sole governance and control.
“St Vincent’s have no record in looking after mothers and babies,” he said. “I would respectfully suggest SVHG take a leaf out of the Sisters of Charity’s book and gracefully withdraw from its insistence on ownership and allow the NMH retain its voluntary status.
“Neither the religious nor the state should own it. Whatever about the chequered history of the church’s involvement in female reproductive healthcare, the state’s track record is one of deprioritisation and serious under- investment. The state has a poor record in relation to women’s and infants’ health over many administrations, despite bookshelves sagging under the weight of reports and reviews never implemented.
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“Only for the three Dublin maternity hospitals being voluntary hospitals with their own boards, they would have gone to the wall, particularly during the recession, when the state’s response to them delivering 2,000 babies-per-annum more than we were resourced for was the moratorium on recruitment, plus cuts to our revenue and capital budgets.”
However, the NMH has rejected assertions by Peter Boylan, one of its former masters, that the current agreement impinges on its governance.
“These latest assertions are without foundation,” an NMH spokesman said. “It is being asserted the master of NMH will report to St Vincent’s Hospital in relation to that role. This is false. The master will report to the board of the new NMH in relation to the entire operation of the hospital, exactly as is the case today. SVHG [has] made clear the master will also fulfil the role of clinical director for obstetrics and gynaecology on the Elm Park campus and will report to SVHG’s clinical director in relation to that role only.”