Phoenix Children’s Hospital prepares legal fight over Irish facility name
Dec 7, 2017, 11:08 AM
(Screenshot)
(Screenshot)
PHOENIX — A nationally renowned children’s hospital in Phoenix has told a hospital in Ireland to end plans to go by a variation of its name.
Irish Times reported this week that Phoenix Children’s Hospital informed the Irish minister for health that it would “pursue all available legal remedies” if the new facility in Dublin was named Phoenix Children’s Hospital Ireland.
The Phoenix hospital sent a letter to Simon Harris, the health minister, last week, asking that the Irish “refrain from leveraging our name, goodwill and earned reputation.”
Phoenix’s pediatric hospital regularly earns high performance marks. U.S. News and World Report has listed the facility among the best in the country for seven straight years. This year, the hospital was ranked 18th for children’s cardiology and heart surgeries and nationally rated in five other specialties.
Harris had announced the pediatric hospital’s name in October. A group of local officials were also unhappy with the choice.
Dublin Live online reported in November a group of city leaders wrote a hospitals board pushing to honor early-20th century doctor and activist Kathleen Lynn instead of going with Phoenix Children’s Health.
The letter went on to say, “This proposed name has been widely questioned already, given that another health facility in the City bears this name and also that there is a Phoenix Children’s Hospital in the USA.”
The Irish hospital was expected to be finished by 2021-2022.
