Treatment fund will not pay for scoliosis surgeries

PARENTS of children seeking urgent scoliosis operations have been told the National Treatment Purchase Fund will not pay for them, despite assurances from Health Minister Mary Harney three weeks ago.

The angry parents of one 13-year-old girl with the condition has accused the minister of getting her facts wrong about the capacity of the NTPF to pay for scoliosis operations. Their daughter, who recently had one operation rescheduled and who writes about her experiences in today’s Irish Examiner, has been attending Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin.

In response to a Parliamentary Question on May 21 from Fine Gael’s Dr James Reilly, Ms Harney said: “I understand that the HSE and the authorities at Crumlin are seeking to agree arrangements with the National Treatment Purchase Fund for a number of patients who are suffering with this condition to be treated as soon as possible. I would hope early progress can be made in this regard.”

The girl has been on a waiting list for eight and a half months and the curvature of her spine has increased rapidly. Her mother said: “On receiving [the minister’s] reply I rang the NTPF to make sure our daughter was still on their list and they told us again they were not funding scoliosis surgeries, that my information was incorrect, even though it was from the health minister. Yesterday I received a letter from her surgeon confirming the NTPF have funded a small number of cases in Cappagh hospital and he was aware of cases in Blackrock in the past. I rang the NTPF again and they again denied it.”

Yesterday the girl’s parents spoke to two staff at the NTPF in Dublin and were told that two operations had been carried out recently, apparently because the two patients had been on the waiting list the longest.

“We asked why our daughter cannot also be treated and they led us to believe this was a special arrangement with Crumlin to do the two operations and there wouldn’t be any more done any time soon.

“So much for our minister’s response.”

The NTPF said: “The National Treatment Purchase Fund arranges treatment for public patients who have been waiting longest on public hospital waiting lists for elective surgery. Treatment is provided free of charge to the patient, normally in private facilities. Highly specialised and complex paediatric cases like scoliosis cannot usually be provided within the private sector and it is best clinical practice that these patients are treated through the public hospital system.”

The controversy comes as the Save Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Campaign group plans a national protest to raise awareness of the problems at Our Lady’s in Crumlin. Teresa Shallow of the Save Our Lady’s group said they and members of the Tallaght Action Group (TAG) would walk to the Dáil from the hospitals, in advance of a larger protest in September.

Representatives of the Save Our Lady’s group were due to sit on an Oireachtas Committee today to hear from HSE representatives on the issue of the hospital, but that meeting has been postponed until July 7 to facilitate an appearance by HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm.

On Tuesday Fine Gael’s Simon Coveney raised the issue of a child from Cork who is suffering from the cutbacks at Crumlin. “What is happening at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin is such a disgrace that as many people as possible must see to it the cases of individuals affected by ward and theatre closures are raised. It is not an exaggeration to say that keeping five- and six-year-old children who have complicated, painful and severe spinal deformities, and who require surgery, on waiting lists for up to six months, or indefinitely in some instances, is a form of state-imposed child abuse.”