FAU - Family Accommodation Unit (FAU)

Descriptions

The new Ronald McDonald House (the “House”) will provide a high-quality facility to house the families of children receiving long term critical care in the new National Children’s Hospital (the “NCH”). It will be located immediately west of the NCH site, just inside the current Brookfield/South Circular Road entrance. Its key functions are to: • Merge with and replace the current facility being operated at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) at Crumlin. • Compliment the operations of the adjacent hospital due to families often being in-situ at the hospital for periods of between 2-12 months. • Provide office facilities to support the running of the House and related activities. The House is referred to as a house as it will function in just this fashion for the families who will reside here, often for long periods. Situating it in such close proximity to the hospital is essential as the requirements of young children obtaining critical care necessitates parents being called upon at irregular hours and at relatively short notice. The aim of the House is to provide a home away from home for its occupants. This will be done by providing the residents with facilities for cooking, cleaning, eating, washing and sleeping all close by. Typically, houses of this kind are equipped with everything people would find in their own home. This enables families to have the necessary human requirements and to be together while one child is being cared for in the hospital and adds to the main objective of the House being a home away from home for the families of the children receiving medical care at the NCH. A typical day in the House will normally consist of waking, having breakfast then spending the majority of the day in the hospital with a brief return to prepare a lunch. The residents usually return in the evenings to eat, sleep and unwind.