IPATS Repatriation Team

Every year, hundreds of children are transferred from their local paediatric hospital to CHI in Dublin for specialist or advanced care.  This is part of the model of care for sick children in Ireland which aims to ensure that children get the right care in the right place at the right time.  Some children will need to stay in Dublin for their whole hospital stay but many children will receive the specialist input they need and improve to a point where they can be transferred back to the hospital closest to home.    The IPATS repatriation team has been established to transfer children and their families in the most comfortable and safest way possible and has a specially trained team available Monday to Friday to do so.

This team is led by a specialist paediatric nurse with years of experience caring for sick children.  They are supported by ambulance technicians from the National Ambulance Service and always have access to a paediatric consultant who specialises in transport medicine who is available to provide support by phone whenever needed.  The decision to transfer a child back to their local hospital is made in partnership with families and the local paediatric team and will hopefully reduce the time spent in Dublin by hundreds of children each year.