There were 513 paediatric spinal surgeries completed last year, a 10 per cent increase on the 464 procedures in 2023 and a 35 per cent rise compared to 2019, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said.
She told the Seanad 87 surgeries have been completed up to February 26th this year.
“We are nowhere near where we would want to be” on reducing waiting lists, she admitted. However, she added that there is a “trajectory” that is moving towards reducing this.
The Minister said the waiting list reduced by 15 per cent last year, but it has risen again this year.
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There has been an increase in the “acuity” or severity of some of the cases, which resulted in multiple surgeries being required, and that influenced the waiting list, she said.
Figures from Children’s Health Ireland show there were 233 children on waiting lists for spinal surgeries at the end of last month.
One child has been waiting for between three to four years for a surgery, while two have been waiting for between two to three years.
Most children (53) have been waiting for up to three months, while 35 are waiting between three to six months. There are 20 children waiting for between six and nine months.
Figures from the Minister also showed that 16 patients have received their surgery abroad since 2024.
Saturday outpatient clinics are now taking place and, Ms MacNeill said, between April last year and February this year 526 patients were seen. She said she wanted to give a “sense of the proportions of those discharged versus those requiring surgery”.
Ms Carroll MacNeill was speaking during a debate on the Health (Scoliosis Treatment Services) Bill introduced as a Private Members’ Bill by the Seanad Independent Group.
The Bill targets the Health Service Executive (HSE), requiring it to “establish and maintain a national treatment service for the timely and effective inpatient and outpatient treatment of scoliosis”.
Independent Senator Michael McDowell, who introduced the Bill, said it was “simply a measure to ensure that a tragedy which unfolded for very many children and their parents comes to a timely end”.
He said “the trail of broken promises, missed targets and disappointment and heartbreak and suffering for so many children and their families from delays” had to end.
[ Children with scoliosis offered surgery in United Kingdom and New YorkOpens in new window ]
He also questioned where €19.1 million in additional funding for scoliosis treatment had gone. Mr McDowell pointed to former minister Stephen Donnelly’s public concern that the funds appeared to have been dissipated to more general purposes within the HSE and he called for a review. An internal HSE audit report claimed “the money had all been used for the purposes intended” and the HSE gave itself a “clean bill of health”.
Independent Victor Boyhan, a former board member of the National Treatment Purchase Fund, said it should have a role in data management for scoliosis waiting lists because its figures were trusted.
Independent senator Tom Clonan said that if anyone presented in an emergency department with chest pains they would be treated and given stents if needed and the same for someone with cancer.
“A pregnant woman will not be handed a handout or a link to YouTube and be told: ‘Here’s some advice on what to do when the baby comes.’
“That’s not what happens in any other branch of medicine, but when it comes to disabled children they are denied treatment” because of their additional needs.
“We have children on those acute waiting lists who have become inoperable,” he said.
Aontú senator Sarah O’Reilly pointed to the promise in 2017 by Tánaiste Simon Harris that no child would have to wait more than four months for scoliosis surgery but “he did not follow through on his commitment” and the Government is “failing children with scoliosis”.
The Minister accepted the legislation that passed report stage. The final stage has yet to be passed.
