A fundraising campaign has been launched to finance the first purpose-built children's hospice outside Dublin.
Costing around €14 million, the facility will be constructed in Castlebar to provide specialist care for children with life-limiting medical conditions, from along the western seaboard.
The Mayo Roscommon Hospice Foundation said it will have inpatient and respite suites, along with family accommodation for parents and siblings of those being cared for.
The charity’s Chief Executive Martina Jennings said there is a huge need for such a development to ensure families do not have to travel long distances to access end-of-life care for their children.
She said she hoped the development would help ease an "incredible strain" on families.
Half of the required funding has already been collected.
It is envisaged that a planning application will be lodged early next year, with construction of the Sunflower Children’s Hospice due to be completed by 2028.
The eight-bed building will be augmented by gardens and sensory areas, designed to ensure those using the service can spend time together, in a more accessible manner than is presently possible.
Chairperson of the Board of Mayo Roscommon Hospice Paul Foxe said the initiative represented a major step forward in addressing the palliative care needs of children across the west of Ireland.
He said a needs assessment, complied to examine the viability of the project, had "brought into sharp focus" how badly needed the hospice was.
Mr Foxe paid particular tribute to the contributions of families who had experienced loss for their involvement in the process.
Mr Foxe said he hoped the campaign to fund the project, would typify the "kindness, empathy and generosity of spirit" associated with the hospice movement.
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill echoed those sentiments.
She said a "collaboration and genuine partnership" between the State and the hospice foundation would bring the project to fruition.
The minister said she was committed to improve scheduling of paediatric appointments so that the healthcare system was more cognisant of the demands on families with sick children.
While these might seem like small issues, she said they could help ease the burden on people in extremely sensitive and difficult times.
Asked why the Government was not funding the development, the minister said she had finite resources at her disposal and pointed to a number of other healthcare initiatives in the region.
Ms Carroll MacNeill said the children’s hospice would be staffed by the State and reiterated the importance of collaborative initiatives to improve and enhance services.
Minister calls for 'relentless focus' on patient care
Meanwhile, Ms Carroll MacNeill has said she wants a "relentless focus" on ensuring patient care is enhanced at hospitals around the country.
She said that based on the experience in the Southern Hemisphere, it was expected the flu season here would "hit early and hit hard".
For that reason, she said it was essential hospitals were operating smoothly and that this could only happen when clear patterns had been established, in terms of patient flow and case management.
Ms Carroll MacNeill said she wants emergency departments to be "running clear and running smooth" so that they are best equipped to deal with pressures over the winter months.
She urged people to get the flu vaccine, as part of a wider effort to ease such demands.
She said she wanted EDs to be "safe, consistent and predictable places".
"Processes matter so much to patient experience and this focus is a relentless focus for one reason and one reason only, the safety of people who are presenting to emergency departments," she said.
Ms Carroll MacNeill added that was encouraged by trolley figures over the weekend and said while there were "pockets of inconsistency", there were signs of improvement in many emergency departments.
However, she said consistent high trolley numbers in the west, north west and south west were a cause for concern and that this needed to be addressed by HSE management.
