STAFF AT THE new National Children’s Hospital may be offered accommodation in soon-to-be-vacant buildings on the site of the children’s hospital in nearby Crumlin.
The long-awaited hospital is expected to open in 2025, but there are already concerns as to where employees will live due to the housing crisis in Dublin and beyond.
Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), which will run the new hospital, is already trying to find accommodation for staff.
One of the options CHI is considering is housing staff at the site of the children’s hospital in Crumlin once those buildings are vacant, The Journal has confirmed.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly recently praised hospitals that are looking at ways to house staff, noting it was common practice in the past for hospitals to offer on-site accommodation to healthcare workers.
A spokesperson told us that the board of CHI “will consider the future use of the site at CHI at Crumlin in accordance with the legal parameters under which the site was transferred to CHI”.
“The requirement to support affordable housing for staff is one strategic objective that will be considered in this exercise,” they said.
Many staff members currently working at the other children’s hospitals in Dublin will transfer to the new hospital, but a large number of other employees will need to be recruited.
It is expected that some nurses and other medical staff will move from abroad to Ireland to take up positions at the hospital, which is located beside St James’s Hospital in Dublin 8.
The spokesperson told The Journal that CHI has “undertaken internal initiatives to support new staff in accessing accommodation in Dublin as affordable accommodation remains challenging to secure”.
“While CHI is dependent on the provision of affordable housing for the retention and attraction of staff, our specialty as an organisation is the provision of healthcare to children,” they added.
Phil Ní Sheaghdha, General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), said housing is “becoming one of the biggest barriers to recruiting and retaining nurses and midwives”.
She told us that “a significant number of nurses in CHI Crumlin travel from all corners of the country for their shifts and use on-site accommodation”.
“They have stayed with CHI despite the commute, and this is due to specialty in Crumlin and it is only feasible at present as they have the limited on-site accommodation which is not going to be available in the new CHI site.
“Many of these nurses have indicated that they’ll leave when the move to the new site in St James’s happens,” Ní Sheaghdha added.
‘Forward thinking needed’
Senator Rebecca Moynihan, Labour’s housing spokesperson, said it would be “absolutely great” if staff members could be housed at the Crumlin site given its close proximity to the new hospital.
Moynihan noted there is currently a lot of accommodation being built in the Dublin 8 area, but so are a lot of hotels given the proximity to the Guinness Storehouse and other tourist attractions.
She said accommodation options in the area are “limited in terms of very large sites” but there are several smaller sites close to the new hospital and the Red Luas line that could be used for housing.
“There are smaller sites on Brookfield Road, Old Kilmainham and Sarsfield Road that could be perfect for immediate housing.
“There is also a significant site on Davitt Road that could be developed. It is currently being used as a truck and material depot for the hospital. When construction is done, that site would be freed up and could potentially be converted into accommodation,” she said.
Moynihan said there are plenty of options where accommodation could be built but there needs to be “the political will” to provide the money needed.
The new Children’s Hospital has been beset with numerous delays and its final cost is expected to exceed €2 billion.
There has been much controversy over spiralling costs for the new hospital, but Moynihan said this needs to be “decoupled” from the cost of providing accommodation for its staff.
“One of the problems in the health service overall is attracting staff and ensuring there is affordable accommodation.
“You need to decouple it from the building of the children’s hospital. This is a hospital that we need to run. We have to attract staff and part of that competitive offering is providing accommodation.
“This would also have a good knock-on effect on St James’s Hospital and the Coombe [maternity hospital] as well.
There needs to be forward thinking. Dublin could become a medical centre of excellence in the next few years with the new children’s hospital, James’s – the Misa (Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing) building that’s there, eventually the new maternity hospital.
“We need to think about how we are going to attract that and how we are going to keep that.”
Moynihan said politicians, the Land Development Agency and the health service need “to be forward thinking in terms of how we are going to get staff to this hospital”.
“Part of the offering of attracting people to work in that hospital, as opposed to going abroad, is going to be providing accommodation.”
‘Immense challenges’
Ní Sheaghdha added that recruitment and retention strategies “must now address the immense challenges nurses and midwives face in dealing with the cost-of-living crisis and specifically the issue of housing, or lack thereof”.
“The rising costs of rent are not keeping pace with the salaries of nurses and midwives. For instance, if a newly qualified nurse or midwife living in Dublin or Cork is paying up to €1,800 on rent, that means over 77% of their take-home pay each month is going towards rent. This is not sustainable in the long-term.
“Our members work long shifts, there needs to be affordable and quality accommodation in close proximity to hospitals.
“We know that the Government intends to build elective hospitals in addition to opening the National Children’s Hospital, the provision of housing should be included in any plans to open any additional hospitals,” she said.
The lack of accommodation for healthcare staff is an ongoing issue around the country.
Earlier this year, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly confirmed the HSE is looking into acquiring “hospital-linked” accommodation for overseas healthcare staff and those who are having to travel long distances for work.
At the time Donnelly said his department is considering “bespoke, locally based” accommodation for staff, in particular those who are recruited to Ireland from overseas.
The minister pointed to a similar system in the 1970s, when specific accommodation was provided to healthcare staff.
“Individual hospitals are now looking at this. I think that is very positive, the hospitals that are having the most difficulty with getting staff in because of housing are looking to prioritise this,” Donnelly said.
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