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An artist’s impression of where the new facility will be located on the Elm Park campus. (Image courtesy of Department of Health.)
THE NATIONAL MATERNITY HOSPITAL at Holles Street is to relocate in a €150 million move.
A new facility is to be built on the same campus as St Vincent’s University Hospital, at Elm Park in Merrion, Dublin 4.
The Department of Health said the existing facility would need €25 million in short-term works if the facility was to remain at its current location, part of which dates to the mid-1700s.
Announcing the move, health minister James Reilly said the new facility could assure mothers and babies of the best quality care “in a state-of-the-art, custom-built, modern healthcare facility”.
The Department said the relocation would address a recommendation from an independent KPMG report, compiled in 2008, which had recommended that maternity hospitals in Dublin should be located close to adult acute services.
The Master of Holles St, Dr Rhona Mahony, said the existing building – which has not received a major extension since the 1960s – was no longer fit for purpose, and the new facility was urgently needed.
“The relocation of NMH will address this need and will achieve our strategic aim of close location with St Vincent’s University Hospital,” she said.
The chief executive of the St Vincent’s Hospital Healthcare Group, Nicky Jermyn, said the hospitals had collaborated closely for many years in anticipation that they would ultimately share the same physical space.
The main hospital building at Holles Street dates to the 1930s, but the complex has seen little substantial expansion in the last half-century – while the number of births it handles has increased by 50 per cent in the last two decades.
€150 million has been allocated from the HSE’s capital plan to allow the project to proceed.
The new facility will be designed to accommodate up to 10,000 births a year – an amount roughly equivalent to the numbers currently delivered at Holles St – and will include a neo-natal intensive care unit, a high dependency unit and a special care baby unit.
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The majority of babies born on the Southside of Dublin go via Holles St. The N11 is well connected with the M50 for access and St Vincents is as good a location for relocation as any alternative when taken with things like proximity to QBCs which both the rock road, merrion road and N11 all have.
This is actually a very good example of decision making and frees up a landmark building on Merrion Square for reuse by the government – hopefully in an artistic sense.
I’d say could be turned into dept of health … They’ve wanted to move/redo the current site for ages might be worth selling it and moving to holles st
Merrion Square’s a nightmare for parking. And you have to drop your heavily pregnant wife near the entrance, often on the wrong side of the road and then try to park your car in the city centre while avoiding the expense of a second mortgage.
Good news but one question…why only planning for similar numbers of births as Holles St currently handles….surely forward planning would dictate extra space will bw needed…future proofing?
Alarm bells went off when I read that line. Think luas at 9am on the morning.
Ireland’s birthrate is the highest its been in decades, if it follows almost all developed western countries the only direction the birthrate will be heading is down.
Birth rates are currently falling .
About time!
Stunning begrudgery that says more about those whining than it does about those behind this welcome news.
It’s weird to hear that the place you were born will soon be no more…
Won’t be a while yet… your safe.
Yes indeed! I was born there in November 1945.
Try meeting the nurse that delivered you. And then getting the full details of your entire birth!
Under privacy legislation her mothers permission is required for disclosure of birth details – no joke.
@Gavin – Any idea what will happen to the holles street building after the move is completed?
It’s being given to the State after the new hospital is built. No idea what they’ll do with it though.
Still 5 years away and will probably be longer if this country is anything to go by. So it will be 10 years post the recommendations at a minimum……….God we really know how to get things moving eh!?
where is the NEW CHILDRENS HOSPITAL.???????.
St James
2018 I here……more like 2028 no doubt.
Hear.
Well done. Take a star and sit at the top of the class.
Auto correct ;)
Alex white is Dublin South (adjacent constituency), Kathleen Lynch is Cork and Dicey Reilly is Dublin North so no direct beneficiary from the Health Ministries.
It so happens that Ruairi Quinn and Lucinda Creighton are local ministers but I really don’t see how this “benefits” Dublin Bay South. It will increase traffic and noise pollution and is merely relocating the hospital within the same constituency.
Good idea as it may be I’ll believe it when I see it.
1 million euro to build, 149 million euro disturbance money.
Who’s constituency is that now? Whatever about location make sure it goes to the correct constituency.
To be fair its probably a little better located than a city center location. But still not Ideal. These national hospitals to be built/relocated in Dublin should all really be plonked on the M50 so access is easiest for everyone around the country…………
Totally agree
Yeah, parking is c*nt there! Cost me a fortune and it wasn’t very convenient either. And getting there isn’t too straight forward, if your not familiar with the city.
Idiotic. Build a maternity beside a motorway?? I mean ffs…. Do a little research re clinical adjacencies before embarrassing urself further
Anyone who wants any kind of hospital built on the m50 has no understanding of proper urban planning or hospital planning or traffic management or transport in general. Some say this “no city centre hospitals” nonsense will cause a planning mess that future generations will have to clean up, but the reality is that once development has taken place, it is nearly impossible to “un-develop” it. The sprawling of this city must stop before it is too late.
Good man andy
I’m less concerned about urban sprawl and more concerned about building safe high quality hospitals with a full range of mother and child services in close proximity.
And what idiot decided to paint it red?
It’s a labour project Vincent.
The location was recommended in a report issued in 2008, during the last Government. If this was stroke politics, then the beneficiary is long out of office.
Is that a Monopoly hospital? whats the rent like if you land on it? :P
Amazed no one has said that it’s being knocked down as it’s full of cracks!
I think it’s a listed building , can’t knock it down .
Seems like a sensible decision. Holles Street is really unfit for purpose at this point and if the hospital is to move then it makes sense for it to relocate adjacent to a fully functional major hospital which can deal with any emergencies that may arise.
Parking could be a bit of an issue but compared to parking in and around Holles Street it’ll be a breeze. It will also be easier to get to than Holles Street for anybody outside Dublin (M50 to Junction 16 and then down the link road onto the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway).
Lets hope they get planning permission for it now.
Great news however the new facility will have a capacity for 10,000 babies per annum, Holles St currently deals with 9,500 babies per year, where’s the forward thinking and creating room for manoeuvre?
As has been pointed out upthread our birth rate is currently at an all time high and is more likely to decrease over the next few years given that people are waiting later in life to get married and generally having less children.
They are already allowing for a 5% increase on this historical high. I would suspect that by the time the relocation has taken place the rate will have dropped back and thus will have even more capacity.
It’s possible the move will coincide with a strategy to eliminate or reduce the need for a hospital stay, by increasing uptake of homebirths, or the Domino scheme, where mothers are transferred home less than day after birth. There’s a move with health services in general to providing more care and treatment in the home or community where appropriate and maternity services can be part of that too.
I wonder if the other two relocations will go ahead as recommended. The Coombe was supposed to move to Tallaght and the Rotunda to the Mater, but that was based on the Children’s Hospital also going to the Mater.
If the Children’s Hospital is built at James, I can see the Coombe staying in its present location to maintain proximity between the three. And I can’t see the Rotunda being relocated to the Mater, with the two soon to be part of different hospital groups and management structures.
Rotunda folding into Mater would be a serious loss – last thing we need is it being converted to a “catholic hospital” (apparently we have those now according to RC bishops). Always been the one maternity hospital where the ethos has tended towards mother first.
Much more likely to now end up out in the Beaumont or Connolly campus
Men will have the ability to have babies before this move actually takes place.
Planning objections as well to factor in.
No money for any medical services it appears on the news regularly.
so where is this money going to come from even allowing for the sale of the present site.still wouldn’t cover the cost of the new building and fitting out the hospital to the required natal standards.
Bout time they knocked that Hollis Street building down – tis full of cracks.
have your say