Leo Varadkar, the Sisters of Charity and the National Maternity Hospital

 

Anti-Clerical Hysteria and the National Maternity Hospital

I have three previous articles that relate to this topic: Sister Stanislaus Kennedy and False Allegations against The Sisters of Charity [1];  Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, the Sisters of Charity and the National Maternity Hospital [2] and  Kevin Myers and the Age of De Valera and McQuaid  The latter article doesn't mention the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) as such but concerns then Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar in 2017 libelling journalist Kevin Myers as an anti-Semite. Kevin Myers is a long-standing supporter of Israel, Varadkar MUST have known that the claim was false but he choose to put himself at the head of a Twitter mob that was targeting Myers at the time. His recent antics concerning the NMH have a similar rationale - the use of media-created public hysteria for political advantage! ..

(A) Background

According to its website the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) situated at Holles St, Merrion Square, Dublin "was established through charitable donations in 1894 and, in 1903 the NMH became a Corporation on receipt of its Charter from the Crown. The legal status of the NMH emanates from the Charter and subsequent legislation and in that respect is along the same lines as the other two major Dublin maternity hospitals." [These are the Rotunda Hospital founded in 1745 and The Coombe in 1826 - all three founded during the period of British rule in Ireland and the latter two before Catholic Emancipation]

"Under the Charter, before its amendment in 1936, the control of NMH rested with the members of the Corporation known as Governors numbering up to 65 but the day to day operational control rested with the Master, an obstetrician and gynaecologist elected by the Governors.  

"NMH was rebuilt in 1930s and this opportunity was taken to amend the Charter by the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin (Charter Amendment) Act 1936 (the “Act”).  The Act which increased the number of Governors up to 100 established an Executive Committee to manage the Corporation's property and affairs. The Governors elect the ordinary members of the Executive Committee at each Annual General Meeting and elect the Master once every seven years." 

The extensive rebuilding of the NMH in the 1930s was largely financed by the (in)famous lottery called the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes but by the early years of this century the accommodation had become inadequate and a move to a much larger site was needed. In May 2013 it was announced that the hospital would relocate to the site of St. Vincent's University Hospital, Elm Park. A new facility would be built on the same campus as St Vincent's Hospital. 

Announcing the move, Fine Gael Minister for Health, 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 NMH Holles St, Dr Rhona Mahony, said the existing building  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.

(B) 2017 Controversy re Alleged Role of Sisters of Charity in New NMH

St Vincent's Hospital was founded by Mother Mary Aikenhead, foundress of the  Religious Sisters of Charity, on St Stephens Green, Dublin in 1834. The hospital was subsequently moved to its current site in Elm Park in 1970, and in 1999 was renamed St. Vincent's University Hospital, to highlight its position as a principal teaching hospital of University College Dublin. Media reports in 2013 made no mention of any problems relating to the alleged role of the Sisters of Charity in the relocated National Maternity Hospital! The controversy began in April 2017 when a former Master of the NMH, Dr Peter Boylan, resigned from the board over the alleged influence of the Sisters on the new hospital. By 3 May 2017 a petition to oppose their - supposedly - becoming the sole owners of the relocated National Maternity Hospital had been signed by more than 100,000 people.

My article Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, the Sisters of Charity and the National Maternity Hospital [2] deals with this 2017 bogus controversy - with particular reference to the allegations of Dr Boylan. It should have been abundantly clear from the outset that the Sisters of Charity .would have no role whatsoever in the operation of the NMH. As a result of the thuggish abuse hurled at them they also speeded up their withdrawal from their management role in St Vincent's University hospital. This was an act of folly and cowardice by the nuns that empowered our anti-clerics and pointed towards the recent antics of Tanaiste (Deputy PM) Leo Varadkar!  

Leading "liberal" nun Sister Stanislaus Kennedy described the thuggish assault on the integrity of her colleagues as "Elder Abuse" NOT anti-Catholic or anti-clerical hatred. Her risible response only reinforces the view that the Sisters are incapable of defending themselves and can be abused and insulted with impunity!

(C) Will Sisters of Charity Impose Catholic Ethos on NMH (as per Dr Peter Boylan)?

(i) An article in the Sunday Times dated 1st August 2021 is entitled New NHM Head: Ownership Is Irrelevant and subtitled "Pat McCann says red line for government on who owns the hospital site is not important and that nuns will have no part in how services are operated"

Pat McCann, the newly elected head of the National Maternity Hospital board, has said he will not ask St Vincent’s Healthcare Group (SVHG) to sell the site to the state because it is “irrelevant” who owns it.

McCann believes that as long as the state owns the hospital building, the ownership of the land is not important. “Where you have a building on a campus like St Vincent’s, it’s very common in Ireland and the UK that there are common services such as egress and car parks. The easiest way to manage that is to have a ground lease,” he said. “The Intercontinental hotel in Dublin is built on ground owned by the RDS, but there is a ground lease and the RDS has no hand, act or part in how the hotel runs its business.”

The founder of the Dalata hotel group has arranged to meet James Menton, the chairman of SVHG, this week “to make sure we’re all aligned on what we’re doing”. He does not intend to meet the Religious Sisters of Charity, who own SVHG, as “they will have no hand, act or part” in the relocated National Maternity Hospital (NMH).....

McCann succeeds Nicholas Kearns, a former president of the High Court, who resigned from the NMH in July and later said the Dublin Bay South by-election “had made things more complicated”. During the campaign, the tanaiste Leo Varadkar said state ownership of the NMH was a “red line” issue for the government. McCann said he “absolutely” supports the current plan for the state to own the new building on a site it will lease for 149 years from SVHG.

“The thing to watch is if there are any restrictive covenants in that lease,” he said. “There is only one: that what goes on the site is the hospital. All [medical] procedures that are legally available in the state will be available there.”

(ii) Previous Head of NMH Board and Master of NMH reply to Dr Peter Boylan (2017)

(from article Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, the Sisters of Charity and the National Maternity Hospital [2] )

Nicholas Kearns (former President of the High Court) was Deputy Chair - in effect Head - of the National Maternity Hospital Board in 2017 and Dr Rhona Mahony was Master of the Hospital. They replied to an inflammatory text message from Dr Peter Boylan on 23 April 2017.  

"Both the Master and I have received and read your text sent to us at 13.47 today.  We are now asking for your immediate resignation from the Board of Holles St – both because of your public intervention to criticise and oppose the overwhelming majority decision of the Board taken in November last to approve the agreement reached with SVUH for the transfer of Holles St to Elm Park – a vote on which you abstained – and in addition because of the content of your text sent today. “It’s intimidatory tone is most regrettable.”

The National Maternity Hospital also issued a statement:

“Dr Boylan was a member of the NMH Board at all times during the six month period of mediation which resulted in the agreement of 21 November 2016 to co-locate the National Maternity Hospital with St Vincent’s University Hospital. The Board was kept fully briefed on all developments by the negotiating team during that period.

The decisive final meeting of the board overwhelmingly supported the agreement with 25 in favour, two abstentions (including Dr Boylan) and one vote against. [My emphasis] 

Thereafter the agreement was approved by government and planning permission was lodged. Last week, some five months after the agreement was approved, Boylan, without warning, consultation with or notification to the Board, its chair or the master of the hospital, went public in attacking the agreement. Board members have a duty of loyalty to the Board on which they serve and for this reason his resignation has been sought.

An Irish Times article dated  8 December 2018 headed Dr Rhona Mahony says Nuns Will Not Run New Maternity Hospital has the subheading "Holles Street master says Canon Law ‘Irrelevant’ to New Cacility at St Vincent’s campus"

The outgoing master of the National Maternity Hospital has said there will be no religious involvement at all in the proposed new maternity hospital on the St Vincent’s campus. Dr Rhona Mahony, who finishes her term in Holles Street on January 1st, [2019] said it was unfortunate that a lot of people thought nuns were going to be running the new facility...

“So let’s just be very clear. The Sisters of Charity will not be running this hospital. They never sought to run this hospital. They never sought to have any involvement in this hospital and they were never going to have any involvement in this hospital and they do not have any involvement in this hospital,” she told RTÉ’s Marian Finucane programme.

“Telling women stories that this hospital will be run by religious sisters is really damaging. It frightens women because they may believe that services for them will be restricted in terms of not providing termination of pregnancy, not providing contraception, when in fact the opposite is the case....

Dr Mahony said the Sisters of Charity, who own the St Vincent’s campus, have given the land for the new maternity hospital free of charge and are getting out of Irish healthcare. She said the hospital will be run by a lay company operating under Irish law and all services allowed under Irish law including abortion will be able to take place in the hospital. She stressed there will be no religious interference “whatsoever” and that canon law will be “irrelevant” to the ethos of the hospital.

According to the Wikipedia article on the National Maternity Hospital, Dr Rhona Mahony privately complained that "the feminists are going to unravel this fantastic hospital for women"! [1]

(iii) So what was Dr Peter Boylan's solution in 2017 - to avoid the alleged takeover by the Sisters of Charity of the relocated National Maternity Hospital? Well back then he proposed  a Compulsory Purchase Order of land belonging to Elm Park golf club (near St Vincent's Hospital) and linking the new NMH by tunnels etc to St Vincent's . But problems quickly emerged with that "solution". Health Minister Simon Harris pointed out that using a CPO would not be “the ideal solution by any means” because it would mean the project getting “caught up in some potential legal difficulty for a large number of years” In an Irish Independent article on 25 April 2017, Shane Phelan gave an illustration of this difficulty. He referred to the case of Thomas Reid who resisted efforts by IDA Ireland to compulsorily purchase his land in 2011. The matter went all the way to the Supreme Court where Mr. Reid won his case in 2015. 

My own comment at the time was that in the scenario suggested by Dr. Boylan, Elm Park Golf Club would be VERY likely to win a legal battle. They could point out that their land is “on the periphery” (as Dr Boylan states) and that for ideological reasons, the National Maternity Hospital had rejected the offer of a more central site from the Sisters of Charity!

More recently Dr Boylan "revealed on RTE Radio that former Health Minister Simon Harris had suggested to him that the NMH could be co-located at at Tallaght instead" - a proposal that would delay its construction by years and waste millions already spent .However it might all be worth-while to spite the Catholic Church!

(D) The Dishonesty of Leo Varadkar 

In an article in the Irish Independent on Nuns are Being ‘Bullied’ over Land for New National Maternity Hospital, says Prominent Priest, Sarah McDonald writes:

A well-known priest has said the Religious Sisters of Charity are being bullied in the row over the ownership of the land for the new National Maternity Hospital (NMH) at St Vincent’s Hospital. Fr Brendan Hoban, a co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests which represents over 1,000 Irish priests, said “a sustained effort is being made to bully the Sisters of Charity into complying” with politicians’ demands over the valuable 29-acre site.

Criticising what he believes to be a populist anti-Catholic mood of politicians in the Dáil, the Co Mayo priest said he did not think the Sisters of Charity should ‘gift’ the site at Elm Park to the State but should instead sell the site to the State and “use the enormous proceeds to re-direct their own medical services, especially towards the poor.

In his weekly column for the Western People, Fr Hoban noted that when the nuns offered the site adjacent to St Vincent’s Hospital complex in Elm Park, the Government’s only reservation was that the new hospital would be able to deliver the full range of services open to it under the law....

Fr Hoban accused Tánaiste Leo Varadkar of throwing “the equivalent of a grenade” into the mix a few weeks ago when he indicated that ownership was still a problem and that any obstetric or gynaecological service that was legal in the State would have to be available in the new hospital.

Describing the Tánaiste’s intervention as “odd”, the retired parish priest noted that prior to Mr Varadkar’s comments, the only voice objecting to the agreement co-locating the new hospital in Elm Park was the former Master of the Holles Street, Dr Peter Boylan, whom he described as “a persistent Greek chorus of just one”.

He also questioned the reasons for Mr Varadkar’s intervention in light of the recent letter signed by 42 senior clinicians at the NMH, including the current master and three former masters, expressing concern that misinformation and misunderstanding would delay “a vital project to create a world-class maternity hospital for the women and babies of Ireland”. They believe there will be no restriction on treatments and no subservience to religious control in the new hospital.

Suggesting that the nuns are collateral damage of Mr Varadkar’s agenda, Fr Hoban said there seemed to be only one solution. “Let the Sisters of Charity sell the site of the hospital to the state” and let Mr Varadkar explain the consequent loss of millions of euros, he said.

Unfortunately I think it's too late for the solution suggested by Fr Hoban. However the co-leader of the Social Democrats Roisin Shortall has provided a plausible explanation for Leo Varadkar's "odd" decision to throw "the equivalent of a grenade" into the NMH relocation process:

She asked him: “When precisely did you become seriously concerned about the proposed new National Maternity Hospital? In the Dáil last week you told us there were fundamental problems with two aspects of the deal, ownership, and governance. I've been telling you exactly that for the past four years. I'm quite curious about when you finally saw the light.”...

“Work started on the legal framework in 2017, but four years later, there's still no sign of it. You complained bitterly about the proposed 99-year lease, saying it wasn't satisfactory, and that we should own the site, but it was your Government that proposed a lease in the first place.”

Ms Shortall added: “So I'm curious, Tánaiste, as to what prompted you to get to your feet in this House last week to express serious concern. Was there something significant about the timing? I notice it’s an issue that voters in Dublin Bay South care deeply about. Perhaps their concern has been a catalyst for some long overdue action.”

And THAT is why 42 senior clinicians at the NMH, including the current master and three former masters, expressed concern that misinformation and misunderstanding would delay “a vital project to create a world-class maternity hospital for the women and babies of Ireland”. Except Leo Varadkar is not misinformed nor does he misunderstand. Political advantage is far more important for him than progressing the building of  a new National Maternity Hospital!

(E) The Folly of the Sisters of Charity

Back in 2017 I made three correct predictions regarding the future of this controversy - in my article Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, the Sisters of Charity and the National Maternity Hospital [2]. Well they were all the related to the same prediction really!

(i) "If the Sisters of Charity manage to handle the present crisis properly, namely by refusing to make concessions in the face of hysterical attacks, then it could discourage such attacks in future. And that will benefit lots of people apart from clergy or religious."

In that respect I was pleased to read the following in Valerie Hanley’s article in The Mail on Sunday on 23 April [2017]:

A source revealed: ‘The nuns are adamant that they have fulfilled all their obligations under the redress board. When something is repeated enough it becomes fact. There has been an awful lot of vitriol loaded on the nuns. There has been a nonsense argument going on all week and there is no basis for some of what has been said. Some of what has been said is prejudice for things that happened historically. It’s band-wagonism and politicians are running after it. The politicians should be doing better.

The nuns are annoyed and they consider some of the comments that have been made as being defamatory. I think their attitude now is ‘let the State go off and build their hospital on their own land’. [My Emphasis]

That’s all very well and I couldn’t agree more BUT the Sister’s comment is being made anonymously. My own fear is that – under pressure – the Sisters of Charity will cave in and authorise an amendment to the National Maternity Hospital Agreement approved in November 2016. In that case, their critics will rejoice and declare themselves victorious and vindicated. In previous comments I have detailed how the Sisters of MERCY were savaged because of their constant attempts to ingratiate themselves with people who hated them. I also have an article on the subject here: Sisters of Mercy

I hope that the Sisters of Charity now understand the dangers of Appeasement – defined by one British newspaper in 1939 as “A clever plan of selling off your friends in order to buy off your enemies”. (For the Sisters of Mercy, that worked the same way it did for Neville Chamberlain!)

But of course my hopes were vain and the nuns caved in!

(ii) I wrote in 2017 about  the repeated claims by politicians and journalists that the Sisters of Charity had failed to pay the balance of €3 million “compensation” that they “owed” the State. Health Minister Simon Harris said that the two matters should be considered separately. What two matters? On 23 April [2017] the Mail on Sunday (journalist Valerie Hanley) reported:

The Department of Education has confirmed to the Mail on Sunday that that the nuns’ legal costs for the Ryan Commission will be offset against the €3 million of payments for abuse victims that are outstanding. While these costs have not been finalised, media reports that were based on briefing documents have estimated them at €5 million, a sum that would more than wipe out the outstanding bill that they owe.

Crucially, the department has confirmed that the reason for the delay in resolving the problem is nothing to do with the nuns, but is down to its own officials figuring out the final costs of the congregation’s legal representation at the Ryan Commission…..

Yet, as Ms. Hanley pointed out, the claim that the Sisters owed €3 million, had been repeatedly cited by politicians from Fianna Fail, The Greens, Labour and the Social Democrats and the media as justification for outraged comments about the agreement brokered by Kieran Mulvey. Did the Minister for Health not liaise with his Education colleague? Or did he decide to sidestep the issue – on the basis that discretion is the better part of valour when faced with anti-clerical hysteria?

Back in 2017 I wondered what would have been the attitude of Jews if they had been attacked in similar fashion? Suppose that a Jewish group had offered to donate land for a hospital under precisely the same conditions as those agreed in November 2016 between Holles St and St Vincents. Suppose that the media and politicians erupted with hate-filled lies – including claims that the Jewish group committed “atrocities” against children, “experimented on [a child] for vaccine trials” and owed the State €3 million. Suppose that the Government Ministers responsible failed to defend the Jewish group against the lies and it was left up to a Daily Mail journalist to find out – via a Freedom of Information request – that the Jewish group owed nothing and had actually overpaid!

I wrote that this would never happen because the Jewish group would immediately defend its slandered members and take legal action against those responsible. Anti-Semites know this and are very mindful of the risks they would be facing. So Anti-Semites have to be very careful – but NOT anti-clerics and in particular not anti-clerics who tell lies about nuns. The leaders of female religious congregations have always preferred the Appeasement approach. This has worked for them in much the same way it did for Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s i.e. it encourages further attacks from people who recognise moral cowardice when they see it. 

Thus Leo Varadkar's recent attempt to win votes in the Dublin Bay South by-election by bullying supine nuns!

(iii) An article in the Irish Medical Times “A Complicated Delivery” by editor Dara Gantly on 10 May 2017 concluded as follows:

…What is of further interest now is that the Minister [for Health] wants to begin a “broader conversation” about the structure of our health service, including the role of voluntary hospitals and the interest religious congregations have in them. This has been happening in education (slowly mind), so we should not be too surprised to see it start in Health.

“That is a good thing and I want to separately put in place a process to facilitate that broader conversation which is long overdue and which will, rightfully, take some time,” Minister Harris has noted. ..

I wrote in 2017 "And what will be the nature of this conversation IF Minister Harris sees that the Sisters of Charity and the Church will not stand up for themselves but will attempt to conciliate the mob? When politicians and the media claimed that the Sisters owed €3 million in “compensation”, it was not the Minister for Health, but a Daily Mail journalist who queried the Department of Education and discovered that the Sisters owed nothing and in fact had over-paid! 

"If the Sisters of Charity attempt to appease the mob in relation to the National Maternity Hospital, then reason and logic will NOT feature in the future “broader conversation” referred to by Simon Harris!"

And so it has turned out!

The Sisters Surrender to the Secular Power!

On 31 May 2017 Sr Mary Christian, Congregational Leader of the Religious Sisters of Charity issued a Statement confirming that the Sisters were withdrawing from any involvement in St Vincent's Hospital that they had founded in 1834 - and also confirming the abandonment of the hospital's Catholic ethos:

The Religious Sisters of Charity will end our involvement in St Vincent’s Healthcare Group and will not be involved in the ownership or management of the new National Maternity Hospital.....

Upon completion of this proposed transaction, the requirement set out in the SVHG Constitution, to conduct and maintain the SVHG facilities in accordance with The Religious Sisters of Charity Health Service Philosophy and Ethical Code, will be amended and replaced to reflect compliance with national and international best practice guidelines on medical ethics and the laws of the Republic of Ireland.

The SVHG Board, management and staff will continue to provide acute healthcare services that foster Mary Aikenhead’s core values of dignity, compassion, justice, quality and advocacy....

Nobody was fooled by this pious invocation of the name of their foundress. It was clear that they were surrendering to the pressure (and blatant lies) of a secular mob. Their cowardice ensured that the attacks on them would continue - even to the present day!  

(F) CONCLUSION:

In 2017 I referred to an editorial in the Irish Medical Times (10 May)  entitled  “Minister Build That Hospital” subtitle Sorry episode has revealed much that is ugly about modern Ireland and quoting Doctor Ruairi Hanley

….Regrettably, there is another factor in this dispute that has taken us beyond mere clinical disagreement. Over the past month, a baying liberal cyber mob has entered the fray and all sense of perspective has been lost. Please note, I am not referring here to those colleagues who have genuine concerns about this project. As already stated, I disagree with these people, but I respect their view.

No, the group that I find beyond parody are the extreme liberal, Catholic-hating online brigade who appear to think that a giant abortion clinic is the most important priority for South Dublin. I suspect some of these people will not be satisfied until a few nuns are imprisoned and the Catholic Church is effectively eradicated from any involvement in Irish society.

Liberal outrage

The vicious, obnoxious tone of some members of this new mob is truly appalling. They have turned on Dr Rhona Mahony, an outstanding and dedicated obstetrician who is a role model for Irish women. But, let’s be honest, the cool gang could not care less about the facts. Once they heard mention of nuns the red mist descended and it was then we moved to a classic liberal outrage contest.

For these individuals, online perception is always more important than clinical outcome. In their world it is apparently acceptable for this project to be sabotaged, with negative consequences for women and children, so long as a few elderly nuns get a good cyber-kicking.

Naturally, if the mob gets their way the hospital will be delayed at a cost of tens of millions of euro to the taxpayer. In my opinion, this would undoubtedly be the most expensive act of online ‘virtue signalling’ in human history. [RC My emphasis]

As an aside, I make no apologies for pointing out that the Catholic Church has done enormous good work in healthcare for the poorest in society over the past century, even if I am one of the only doctors in Ireland willing to say this publicly. [RC My emphasis]….. 

Indeed Doctor Doctor Ruairi Hanley was "one of the only doctors in Ireland willing to say this publicly." This was an Editorial in the highly prestigious Irish Medical Times written about a controversial topic and during the height of the controversy. So how many Comments did it attract? Precisely one - from my NON medical self! [2]

Why were other doctors so reluctant to stick their necks out? I suspect that it was only partly fear of the "baying liberal mob" that Dr Hanley refers to. There is also the fact that the Sisters of Charity refused to defend themselves and abased itself before said mob - as Irish nuns have been doing for the past quarter century! [3]  Leo Varadkar felt free to insult them again in order to please anti-clerical voters in the recent Dublin Bay South by-election. He knew there would be no comeback from the nuns - least of all from Sr Stanislaus Kennedy whose "progressive" reputation COULD have enabled her to embarrass Varadkar, had she not opted to stay silent! 

NOTES:

[1] Wikipedia refer to a Sunday Times article dated 23 April 2017  "Bishop says New Hospital Must Obey the Church", most of which is behind a paywall.

[2] This is the text of my Comment on the Irish Medical Times Editorial dated 10 May 2017

Rory Connor

24th May 2017 at 11:54 pm

I couldn’t agree more.

I have a number of comments on this issue on the Association of Catholic Priests website, (topic “Catholic Ethos and Other Mysteries”) the latest one being number 52 which might serve as a summary

http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2017/05/catholic-ethos-and-other-mysteries/

Sadly the ACP have merged 2 separate although related discussions, so you have to search for the Maternity Hospital one. However it definitely IS worth-while! My own other comments are numbers 20, 25 and 32.

[3] See blog article The Decadence of the Sisters of Mercy and website article The Sisters of Mercy that  - despite its title - also describes the antics of Presentation Sister Elizabeth Maxwell and Ursuline Sister Marianne O'Connor, both former Heads of the Conference of Religious in Ireland. There is something especially grotesque about the antics of the leaders of FEMALE Religious Congregations (although anyone who suspects me of Misogyny should try reading Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, the Simpsons and our Insect Overlords )