Commission of investigation into spina bifida and scoliosis care could become 'farcical exercise', advocates warn
Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) signage outside Irish children's hospital Temple Street Hospital in Dublin. Part of the review will look at whether CHI management was aware of the use or intended use of springs that lacked mandatory EU certification in surgeries undertaken at Temple Street. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire
A proposed commission of investigation into State care of children with spina bifida and scoliosis will “fall far short” of what families were promised, advocates have warned.
The Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus Paediatric Advocacy Group said it is “deeply concerned” about the planned scope of the probe, which is likely to start in six months.
The group said what is being proposed risks becoming “a farcical exercise in administrative sleight of hand” that risks “minimising or omitting the clinical harm suffered by children while failing to examine how systemic failures resulted in that harm”.
Their comments come after they and other advocacy groups were briefed on the results of a scoping exercise into the potential structure and terms of reference of an inquiry.
The 136-page report — due to be published today — of the scoping exercise by Remy Farrell SC recommends a commission of investigation conducted in private and based around four modules.
The first module would look into the impact of waiting lists between 2019 and 2025.
The second would look at whether Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) management was aware of the use or intended use of springs that lacked mandatory EU certification in surgeries undertaken at Temple Street by Consultant A between 2020 and 2022.
Module Three would inquire into whether the surgical intervention threshold for developmental dysplasia of the hip — where a baby's hip joint is loose and can move out of its normal position easily — was justified.
Module Four would examine whether children not transferred to Temple Street from 2008 onwards received a lower standard of care as a result.
Labour's health spokesperson Marie Sherlock, one of the TDs briefed about Mr Farrell’s report, said: “While it looks like an inquiry could be up and running in six months, it will be a long time before anybody gets to find out what happened and why.
“This is because two of the four models of the agreed inquiry are predicated on the conclusion of ongoing inquiries, and I believe it will take years before people are finally able to get into what exactly went on at CHI and why.”
Social Democrats TD Padraig Rice said the inquiry will only provide "limited truth and justice".
Even though it was only meant to take a year, the Nayagam Review, which began in September 2023, has not yet been completed.
Announced on September 18, 2023, it was launched because of serious concerns around spinal surgery in CHI at Temple St under one surgeon.
Led by British orthopaedics consultant Selvadurai Nayagam, phase one of his review has been completed, but the HSE says phase two is “ongoing”.
It has also emerged that a wider look back at the surgeon’s work between 2016 and 2023, announced in February this year, is only at preparation stages over six months later.
The decision to hold the scoping exercise came months after the tragic death of Harvey Morrison Sherratt.
The nine-year-old, who had both scoliosis and spina bifida, waited so long for spinal surgery that the curve in his spine went from 75 degrees to 130 degrees.
By the time of his surgery in December 2024, the curve was so severe it was impossible for it to be corrected fully, and he subsequently died seven months later, last July.
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