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The current Master of the National Maternity Hospital will tell the health committee that he is “alarmed by the combination of emotive misinformation and misunderstanding that prevails” around the new hospital.
In his opening statement to the Joint Oireachtas Health Committee Mr Shane Higgins is due to tell TDs and Senators that it has been “difficult to hear claims that the proposed move to Elm Park is some kind surrender to the Church”.
The Committee is due to meet at 7.30pm on Thursday evening.
“Legitimate concerns are welcome and deserve every consideration, but we must also deal in facts, and I am alarmed by the combination of emotive misinformation and misunderstanding that prevails,” he will say in his opening statement. “Just because the contracts underpinning the new hospital appear complex does not indicate the church stealing influence over women’s reproductive choices through clever contractual stealth.”
Mr Higgins will say that the NMH currently has no constraints on the procedures it offers patients and this will continue when we relocate.
“The misplaced fear that the phrase ‘clinically appropriate’ is a clever legal code word to allow the Vatican stop certain procedures needs to be challenged.
“This wording serves as future-proofing, to ensure that the new maternity hospital cannot be converted into any other type of hospital in the future. It guarantees that the new NMH will remain, throughout its lifespan, as a maternity, gynaecology and neonatal hospital, and in this way, this significant investment into world-class maternity care in Ireland is protected. All procedures carried out in the hospital on a daily basis are clinically appropriate, the alternative is inconceivable.”
Compulsory purchase order
Meanwhile, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said that a compulsory purchase order (CPO) of the land at the site of the proposed new National Maternity Hospital (NMH) “might well collapse” the partnership with St Vincent’s Holdings CLG and would end co-operation on the project.
Mr Donnelly has said he does not believe it is reasonable to put a project “as important as this” at such risk, “to potentially delay it for many years or derail it entirely, in order to move from a leasehold ownership to a freehold ownership”.
The site of the proposed new hospital at Elm Park in south Dublin was owned by the Religious Sisters of Charity, who transferred its shareholding to a new company, St Vincent’s Holdings CLG. The land for the new hospital is to be leased to the State for 299 years at €10 per year.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said he expects there to be a Government decision on the hospital next Tuesday.
Speaking in the Dáil on Thursday, Mr Donnelly said he wanted to be clear; “the nuns are gone”.
“They stopped their active involvement five years ago and in the past few weeks transferred all their shares to St Vincent’s,” he said.
“In fact, I waited until that share transfer was completed before bringing any proposals to Cabinet or the Oireachtas for consideration.”
He said there was no mechanism for any religious involvement, “now or in the future”, in St Vincent’s or the new National Maternity Hospital.
Responding to questions from Sinn Féin’s health spokesman David Cullinane, Mr Donnelly said his preference since taking office was that the land would be transferred into public ownership but that St Vincent’s had been clear from day one “that freehold would not be considered”.
The health minister also said that he does not believe clarifying the term “clinically appropriate”, in terms of procedures available, would represent a substantial legal change.
Dáil motion
Sinn Féin will bring forward a fresh Dáil motion next week calling on the Government to ensure the new National Maternity Hospital is built on land owned by the State.
Both the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar indicated on Thursday that the Cabinet will proceed with plans to approve a memo on the relocation at its next meeting on Tuesday.
The Government had hoped to allay concerns about the move which centred around governance, ownership and ethos given the new hospital will be located on land which will be leased back by a new company, St Vincent’s Holdings.
The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has spent recent days briefing the political parties, Oireachtas committees and the Dáil in a bid to address outstanding questions.
The fresh Sinn Féin motion will bring the controversy into another political week with a vote scheduled for next Wednesday evening.
The motion will call on the Government to “pursue the full realisation of the promise that was made by the Religious Sisters of Charity to gift the land to the people of Ireland” and to “engage, at the highest level, with the new ownership group behind SVHG, St Vincent’s Holdings CLG, to secure full public ownership of the site and new building”.
The motion says that this should ensure “all necessary safeguards, wayleaves, and guarantees to ensure the integrity, integration, and highest quality of care on the site.”
Maternity strategy
It also calls for increased resourcing of the maternity strategy and refurbishment of maternity hospitals and units in need of works.
The motion will also call on the Government “to ensure the full provision of the range of legally available sexual and reproductive health services across all relevant HSE facilities and the advancement of accessible community-based services in this field.”
The motion could put pressure on Government TDs due to the timing after Cabinet.
In the Dáil on Thursday, Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond said that if more time is needed to debate and consider the issue, beyond next Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, then that should be considered.
His party colleague, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, said she was “95 per cent” happy with the proposed deal and that she would have liked to have seen public ownership of the land “but that has not been possible”.
The Dún Laoghaire TD asked the health minister to get agreement to an addendum to the constitutional document specifying “a non-exhaustive list” of the services that shall be provided in the hospital.
People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith said she was still not convinced that there was “something deeply wrong” about the deal which hasn’t been addressed or resolved.