Mother’s anguish: Daughter ‘should have been operated on sooner’

THE mother of a little girl at the centre of the controversy over cutbacks at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Dublin wept when HSE chief Prof Brendan Drumm insisted that scoliosis surgery would be prioritised by the hospital.

Prof Drumm said the health authority would be working with the hospital to ensure that 67 patients with scoliosis would have their surgery completed “without delay”.

Last weekend, doctors in London were forced to postpone surgery on Jamie Murphy, 11, from Graiguenamanagh, Co Kilkenny, to correct a severe curvature of her spine because the risk was considered to be too high.