- Green light for new National Children’s Hospital
- Hospital will be tri-located with adult and maternity hospitals on a shared campus
- Hospital will be seven storeys at its highest, comprising of approximately 160,000sq m of accommodation including the car park
- It will have 6,150 rooms in total including 380 individual inpatient rooms, each with an en-suite and a bed for parent to sleep in
- It will have 93 day beds, and 22 operating theatres and procedure rooms
- There will be 48,000 lights and 36,000 ICT points
- There will be 39 lifts
- Over 1,000 underground car parking spaces
- Four acres of outdoor areas and gardens and 14 gardens and internal courtyards
Irish Health Minister, Simon Harris, has approved plans for the construction of a new children’s hospital in Dublin, with work expecting to start within weeks.
Designed by BDP, the new National Children’s Hospital will be built on the site of St James’s Hospital and will have 380 individual en-suite inpatient bedrooms, 22 operating theatres, and 1,000 car parking spaces.
At its highest point it will be seven storeys tall.
The construction cost for the hospital, plus two satellite centres at Tallaght and Connolly hospitals, where children with minor illnesses will be treated, will be around €600m.
However, other costs, such as information and communications technology, will bring the final cost closer to €1bn.
Approving the scheme, which will be built by BAM Construction, Harris said: "Our children have waited a long time for this new hospital, but there is light at the end of the tunnel now.
A new paediatric outpatient and urgent care centre will also be built at Tallaght
"Site clearance work, which began last year, is almost complete and so we'll start building works in the next few weeks."
Full planning permission for the hospital, the two paediatric outpatient and urgent care centres, a children’s research and innovation centre, and a 53-unit family accommodation centre was granted by An Bord Pleanála in April last year.
Parent and long-time campaigner for a new children’s hospital, Louis Roden, chairman of the New Crumlin Hospital Group, said: “This is a great day; another critical milestone in helping us realise the vision and dream of ensuring that the sickest children of Ireland are treated in a modern world-class facility, one that is fit for purpose.
“Staff, parents, but most importantly the children of Ireland, have had to put up with a lot of sub-standard facilities for far too long.
“It is fantastic that we finally have the green light and will soon see walls being built.”
a second satellite centre will be constructed at Connolly Hospital
Professor Owen Smith CBE, a consultant paediatric haematologist at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, added: “It is hard to put into words the positive impact that this new children’s hospital will have on the health outcomes and overall welfare of children and young people.
“My clinical colleagues across the three children’s hospitals, and I, together with the Children’s Hospital Group team, have spent many hours with the project and design team helping to inform the planning of the clinical spaces in what will be one of the finest hospitals in the world.
“The ability to work across all specialities within the paediatric community under one roof, while also sharing knowledge, skills and resources with our colleagues at St James’s will have a phenomenal impact on how children and young people are treated and clinical outcomes can only improve.”
And John Pollock, project director of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, said: “We have completed the first part of our three-pronged remit – we have a beautiful design and are ready now to proceed to the build phase.
“Our core objective is to build and equip a modern, state-of-the-art hospital that delivers value for the people of Ireland, but which, importantly, is designed, built and equipped in a manner which will enable clinicians and staff, who have informed the design, to do their jobs to the best of their ability.”
The hospital will take four years to build and a further six months to commission, with a planned opening at the end of 2021.
