Sinn Féin criticises ‘litany of failure’ in children’s health
By Cillian Sherlock, PA
Children’s lives have been “devastated by the litany of failures in healthcare”, Sinn Féin has said.
Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty said the report into the implant of non-surgical springs in children, and the audit into potentially unnecessary hip operations on other young people, highlighted a pattern of “broken behaviour” in children’s healthcare.
An audit of paediatric hip dysplasia surgeries at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) hospitals found that hundreds of children operated on between 2021 and 2023 did not meet the threshold for the procedure.
The Dáil has heard previously that almost 80 per cent of those operated on at National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh, and 60 per cent of those at Temple Street, did not meet the threshold for surgery in that timeframe.
Speaking during Leaders’ Questions, he said parents were asking why they have been “kept in the dark for so long by Government”, after it emerged that former health minister Stephen Donnelly was briefed on the hip surgery matter in May last year, and his successor, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, was briefed in February.
He told the Dáil: “Patients only received letters about the scandal in recent weeks.”
He added: “We are talking about the possibility of young children put under the knife and their bones being sawed into.
“It is traumatic surgery and it is happening to children between the ages of one year and seven years.”
Mr Doherty said it was “beyond the worst nightmare” for families, adding: “One horrified parent contacted us this week, his daughter was a patient in Temple Street in 2016 from the age of one year right up to three years.
“A consultant diagnosed the child with hip dysplasia and was adamant that she needed surgery.
“In his words, that surgery would have required ‘sawing into her hip bone and reshaping the socket’.
“Because the child never showed any symptoms, the parents sought a second opinion from a specialist orthopaedic surgeon in the North.
“That consultant concluded that their daughter did not need the surgery, as she did not have the condition.
“He said that he was horrified that a doctor had made such an error of judgment and that he would inquire about it.
“This was years ago. The parent went on to tell us that the stress they were under during this time was like nothing they had ever experienced before.
He added: “That is not the only case we have heard of where people got a second opinion, to be told that no condition at all was evident.”
Mr Doherty said: “The audit is looking at a period of two years and 561 children have to be recalled.
“If this issue goes back as far as 2014 or 2016 we are potentially talking about thousands of children.”
Taking Leaders’ Questions on behalf of the Government, Education Minister Helen McEntee said she was “utterly appalled” by the details of the spinal surgeries and said it was “unimaginable” that other children would be subjected to unnecessary hip surgeries.
The Fine Gael deputy leader said the Government would do everything possible to support the families affected by the spinal surgeries, adding that the surgeon responsible has been suspended.
On the hip surgeries, Ms McEntee said: “An audit is currently taking place. It is being carried out at the direction of the HSE and the Minister for Health.
“At the moment, there is no information to suggest that any patient safety incident has occurred.
“At the same time, I will not try to predict the outcome of the audit, nor can anyone else do so.
“Contact is being made with parents and families of children who have had operations in recent years.
“I agree that if there are potentially more cases stretching back further and that families of children need to be written to, that is exactly what must happen.”
She added: “If proper procedures were not followed, we must understand why that happened.”
Ms McEntee said the Government must ensure the board of CHI is still in place for the transition to the new children’s hospital.
“If changes need to take place, we must also understand why that is the case, but we cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater.”
She said a “knee jerk reaction” to sack the board would not help anybody.
Meanwhile, Aontu leader Peadar Toibin said figures his party had obtained through a parliamentary question show that Children’s Health Ireland has cancelled more than 160 operations for children in Crumlin and Temple Street hospitals because of the lack of intensive care beds in the last three years.
“These are cancellations for very serious operations for children who are very sick.
“Nine of these cancellations were for heart operations for children, 10 cancellations were for children needing serious orthopaedic surgery.
“There are just 23 paediatric intensive care beds in Our Lady’s Hospital, Crumlin, and just nine in Temple Street.
“Many of these children and their families have waited years for what in some cases is life-saving surgery, only to get the heartbreaking news that the surgeries have been cancelled.”
