The finding that almost 70 per cent of hip surgeries carried out in two children‘s hospitals over a three-year period were unnecessary is a “national scandal” and answers must be provided, Opposition politicians have said.
On Friday, the Health Service Executive (HSE) published the independent audit on hip surgery thresholds for children with developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH). It examined 147 cases across three hospitals – Temple Street, the National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh (NOHC) and Crumlin Hospital. The vast majority of unnecessary surgeries cited in the audit were at Temple Street and NOCH.
Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane said families are “very anxious” about the report’s findings.
“Every parent whose child had a hip surgery at these hospitals will want an answer: was their child’s surgery unnecessary?” he asked. “The report does not answer that. It recommends that every case is offered a review.
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“The Government is talking about a panel of experts to review cases but are not dealing with this urgently. The process is only being put in place now. The Government has known about this scandal since last May.”
Mr Cullinane asked “why were there such a high number of double hip surgeries”. He also said the work and oversight of some surgeons “needs to be scrutinised much further”.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said it was a “very, very serious” situation and he was concerned about the findings.
“There’s an issue of clinical performance, of clinical governance,” he told reporters in Cork.
He said Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill would be “moving quickly in terms of the governance question” to strengthen clinical and overall governance in Children’s Health Ireland hospitals.
The Minister said she was aware that parents and their children would have many questions about the findings.
“My immediate priority is to ensure that there is clinical follow-up and care for patients who have undergone pelvic osteotomy surgery,” she said. “This follow-up will be in accordance with best practice and the recommendations of the report.”
Ciaran Tansey, of Damien Tansey solicitors, who represents a number of the affected families, said the report “makes for difficult reading”.
“These families urgently call for additional orthopaedic and radiology capacity to be added to the system,” he said. “They want their children to be seen by an orthopaedic surgeon without delay to assess their status and to establish what, if any, remedial operations are now required.”
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Labour health spokeswoman Marie Sherlock said the audit paints a “distressing picture around the lack of clinical governance”.
“There are very serious concerns around informed consent,” she said. “There are a lot more questions here. At the heart of this are children and their families.”
Pádraig Rice, Social Democrats health spokesman and chairman of the Oireachtas health committee, said the report identifies “serious failings around the use of a novel procedure, both in terms of the absence of informed consent and the lack of clinical follow-up to assess the impact of this treatment”.
“Were it not for a whistleblower, these practices could still be happening in our children‘s hospitals,” he added.
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy described the findings as a “national scandal”.
“It is not good enough now for the HSE to put the onus on parents to contact a helpline and request a review of their child’s case,” he said. “All hip surgeries carried out in Temple Street and Cappagh hospitals must be examined and parents must be informed whether or not their child’s surgery was unnecessary.”
