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Irish parents are losing “trust and faith” in care for children with spinal issues, a scoliosis campaigning group have claimed.
The comments came following revelations this week about the Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgical service at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) at Temple Street, at which the HSE says there were “a number of serious spinal surgical incidents.”
In late 2022, senior management in CHI were made aware of “patient safety concerns” regarding the treatment of a small number of patients with Spina Bifida who had spinal surgery at the hospital. These concerns related to “poor clinical outcomes” of some complex spinal surgeries, including a high incidence of post-op complications and infections, and two “particularly serious surgical incidents,” which occurred in July and September 2022.
Following this, CHI commissioned two reviews: one internally, and one externally. These reviews found that 75% of patients who underwent complex spinal surgery developed a wound infection requiring extra surgery. It was also found that found 7 out of 16 patients (over 43%) had metalwork failure complications, and 9 out of 16 patients (over 56%) had metalwork removed. More than 81% of patients needed further surgery due to a post-op complication, with one child requiring 33 follow-up visits to operating theatre.
The Joint Committee on Health has since “urgently” sought a meeting with Children’s Health Ireland to discuss the matter.
Committee Cathaoirleach Deputy Seán Crowe said: “Myself and Members of the Committee are deeply concerned at the revelations regarding spinal surgeries on a number of children at Temple Street and we feel it is important that these matters are examined in detail at a meeting in public session with Children’s Health Ireland at the earliest opportunity. We are working to arrange that the meeting will take place next week.”
Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland about the findings, Scoliosis Advocacy Network co-founder Claire Cahill said that parents had lost “trust and faith” amid the “long-running national scandal” of child spinal treatments.
“I want to know my son is having a safe surgery in a hospital, in our public hospitals that we need to trust,” she said.
“So when I go into the theatre with my son, I place my son in the trust of the hospital and in the trust of CHI.”
She said that many of the CHI report’s recommendations had been called for since 2015.
“We were not listened to,” she said.
“The recommendations that I see, that are actually contained in the report and to be implemented, are not rocket science. There are many basic safety measures, such as the development of a formalised, informed consent chaired decision-making process, or the triage of wait lists.”
She went on to describe “the trauma and upset” that families experienced as their children went for up to 33 trips to the operating theatre for spinal surgery.
Gript previously questioned both Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, and Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris, about the multi-year wait times for children in need of scoliosis procedures – a problem that then-Health Minister Simon Harris said would be fixed by 2017.
Those videos can be viewed below.
"I don't want to comment on individual cases": After a brief interruption about sheepdogs, Leo Varadkar says whether he takes responsibility for children waiting years for scoliosis surgery – a problem that then-Health Minister Simon Harris said would be fixed by 2017.#gript pic.twitter.com/yTOvTKTdOW
— gript (@griptmedia) July 14, 2023
Irish Ex-Health Minister Simon Harris was asked if he is "ashamed" that children are still waiting years for scoliosis procedures – a problem he said would be solved by 2017. "I accept responsibility," he said, before adding that the target was given to him by the HSE.#gript pic.twitter.com/aYoTnuibVK
— gript (@griptmedia) August 30, 2023
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