Former minister for health Stephen Donnelly was informed a year ago about reports that children had undergone unnecessary hip operations but the families were notified only in the past week, the Dáil has heard.
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty also said that thousands of children could be affected “because we’ve been contacted by parents whose children’s cases reach back a decade and further”.
He said Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill was briefed in February about the controversy, following an audit where the families of 561 children are to have their cases reviewed from the years 2021 to 2023.
The controversy follows the publication earlier this week of the report into unauthorised, corrosive springs being implanted into three children during scoliosis surgery at Temple Street hospital.
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Mr Doherty said there was a “pattern of behaviour” at hospitals run by Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) as he accused the Government of behaving like a spectator in the controversy.
But Minister for Education Helen McEntee insisted the Government was not a spectator. She said “parents and families and children are being written to who have had operations in recent years”.
Taking Dáil Leaders’ Questions, she said that if it stretches back further, “if there are potentially more children or families that need to be written to that’s exactly what has to happen here”.
“If proper procedures were not followed, we need to understand why and if there were changes that need to take place, we need to understand why too.”
Mr Doherty referred to a family he had been contacted by who sought a second opinion after a consultant diagnosed their child with hip dysplasia and was “adamant that she needed surgery” that “in his words involved sawing into her hip and reshaping the socket”.
[ Hundreds of children had unnecessary hip surgery at Dublin hospitals, Dáil hearsOpens in new window ]
The parents sought a second opinion from a different orthopaedic surgeon, who said their daughter did not need surgery and did not have the condition.
“He said he was horrified that a doctor had made such an error of judgment,” Mr Doherty said.
He said the Government needs to “get to grips” with this issue and “the scale of the hip surgery scandal”.
Ms McEntee said “the idea or the thought that a child who is already in pain and already struggling would have to go through a surgery that is not necessary is absolutely appalling”.
She told Mr Doherty that the audit is under way. “It is important to say that there is no information at the moment to say that any patient safety incident has occurred.”
The Minister added: “We all agree if any child has had surgery for that was not necessary or shouldn’t have happened, we have to know about it. We have to identify them.
“We have to be able to engage with their families and we need to make sure that they are supported and that this never happens to another child again.”
She said it was same for the surgeries using unauthorised springs on children, which was “absolutely appalling”.
Separately, Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín revealed that 161 children’s operations were cancelled in the past three years because of a lack of beds at Temple Street and Crumlin children’s hospitals.
According to figures he received in a parliamentary reply, nine of the surgeries were heart operations and 10 children needed “serious orthopaedic” procedures. He noted Crumlin hospital has 23 intensive care beds while Temple Street has just nine.
He said the clinical and nursing staff, equipment and operating theatres were in place but the surgeries could not proceed because of the beds shortage.
The Minister said that last year alone 513 spinal procedures were completed, a 10 per cent increase on the previous year. She said they want to do more and there is increased investment being made. “We have a dedicated paediatric spinal surgery management unit” established last year to co-ordinate services, implement strategies and “drive continuous improvement”.
