Over 60 children who suffered spinal surgery complications asked to return for clinical checks

The Health Service Executive (HSE) is to clinically review 62 children who underwent orthopaedic surgery as a “precautionary measure” following the completion of an independent, external report into the service.

This review concerns the practice of an individual consultant and the environment in which they operated at Children's Health Ireland (CHI) and the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Cappagh (NOHC).

As part of this first phase, Mr Selvadurai Nayagam reviewed the care provided to a sample of 91 children whose surgery was carried out by the individual orthopaedic consultant.

He has recommended that 62 of these children receive further clinical follow-up, and the families of those children have been contacted.

He considered the remaining children whose cases he reviewed did not require additional clinical follow-up arising from his work.

The clinical team caring for these children will continue to make the necessary decisions about their care in consultation with their families.

The lookback will involve a review of the patients on whom the individual consultant performed surgeries between 2016 and 2023.

It will include all spinal, limb reconstruction and surgical dislocation of the hip, but not surgeries in the area of trauma and general orthopaedics.

According to Dr Henry: “These follow-up appointments do not arise from any identified urgent risk or concern about individual patients but are intended to check on the patients’ clinical progress.

"The purpose is to determine if the intended benefits of these children’s surgery have been achieved. In some cases, it may be too early to make that assessment, in which case the relevant children will be reviewed again in future to ensure everything continues to progress as expected.”