Parents of nine-year-old Harvey, who died waiting for scoliosis surgery, call for 'peaceful' protest 

Harvey Morrison Sherratt, who died last Tuesday after a long battle with scoliosis. He has waited several years for a crucial surgery. Picture: Morrison/Sherratt family

The mother of Harvey Morrison Sherratt, aged nine, who died after waiting several years for scoliosis surgery, has called for a protest march on Saturday in his name to be peaceful.

His death follows that of Dollceanna Carter, 10, in September 2022 after having eight operations in four months for spina bifida and scoliosis under Children’s Health Ireland. Her case and others form part of a still ongoing external review commissioned by the HSE in 2023.

Last month there were 131 children on the main spinal surgery waiting lists at Children’s Health Ireland hospitals. This includes one child waiting longer than four years and two waiting between three and four years.

In addition 15 children have a date for surgery but are not ready and 31 had one operation with more planned.

Harvey’s parents, Gillian Sherratt and Stephen Morrison, have appealed for people to march in support of all children facing long delays in care. Ms Sherratt said:

This is to be a peaceful march, as anything less than that would not only discredit our cause, but it would tarnish our beautiful boy’s name.

She described it as a march to call out "systemic failures" at CHI and children's healthcare. The grieving parents have repeatedly called on Tánaiste Simon Harris to resign. 

When he was health minister in 2017 he pledged no child with scoliosis would wait longer than four months for an operation.

“We do not hold him directly accountable for Harvey’s death and anyone doing so is doing it against our own wishes. Our issue with him is purely political and not personal,” she said in the same social media post.

Úna Keightley is one of four mothers from advocacy groups — Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Pediatric Advocacy Group and the Scoliosis Advocacy Network — supporting their call for change.

We’re just so heartbroken that Gillian and Stephen fought so hard, and they fought for so long and Harvey still spent so much of his time with a poor quality of life and in pain.

"And his parents had to witness that.” 

She pointed to a series of reports critical of care for this group of children over the last two years and asked: “What else needs to go wrong before somebody does something for us?"

The groups have called for a statutory inquiry into CHI.

“It’s just scandal after scandal and pretending everything is going great,” she said.

“They’re saying everything is going great but I was in with my son at Easter and he didn’t even see a spinal surgeon that time.” 

She feels “parents are more clued in now” and know more about what to ask, warning children with spina bifida are not getting the standard of care they need. 

The march takes place on Saturday at 2pm from the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin.