Families learnt of children's spinal surgery review via newspaper - Sinn Féin
Vivienne Clarke
Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson David Cullinane has criticised the manner in which the HSE communicated details of a clinical review of the cases of 62 children who underwent orthopaedic surgery.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s News at One, Cullinane said that the first time parents heard of the report was when it was reported in a Sunday newspaper.
On Wednesday at a briefing, the HSE announced that it would clinically review the cases of 62 children who underwent orthopaedic surgery.
This is to be done as a “precautionary measure” following the completion of an independent, external report by Prof Selvadurai Nayagam, a consultant in orthopaedics and trauma in Liverpool.
The review was commissioned in 2023 after concerns about high rates of post-operative complications, infections in orthopaedic surgeries and the use of unapproved springs in surgeries.
Cullinane told RTÉ that the facts needed to be urgently established.
“The HSE had this report in September of last year. The Minister received a report about a week and a half ago... what was really problematic and troubling for parents, and I spoke to a number of them today [and] over the weekend, is that this appeared in a Sunday newspaper.
“[This is] because somebody from within the system, within the HSE, briefed the media, and the parents were the last to know... I think that is problematic.
“If your child was one of those children who was part of that review, you want to know first, directly from the HSE and from the minister, and not read it in the media."
Cullinane also said that the report includes recommendations and findings, and that he had spoken with Dr Colm Henry, chief clinical officer at the HSE.
“So in essence, what we have is a report which is unpublished, a report which has made recommendations and findings which have not been communicated to these parents in the letters that have been sent.
"It doesn't talk at all about what was found or what the recommendations are, but what we know is that it did find problems, and it found problems to a sufficient magnitude that has led now to a wider look back, to look at other children.”
However, parents do not know what the report says.
“It isn't just the fact that parents weren't properly communicated with that is bad," Cullinane said. "It's the fact that they have not been told what was in the report, what its findings are, and what exactly these problems which have been found are, and that's a bizarre situation for us to find ourselves in.”
