The head of Children’s Health Ireland says the organisation is “deeply and unreservedly sorry” for some children having had non-medical devices inserted into their bodies during spinal surgery.
Lucy Stewart, the recently-appointed chief executive of CHI, is to tell the Dail’s Public Accounts Committee “what happened should not have happened and children should have been protected from harm”.
She will tell the committee on Thursday morning that CHI “fully accepts the recommendations” of a recent Hiqa report regarding the practice, and will post updates on their implementation to “ensure transparency and openness around improvements to services”.
The Hiqa report found the use of metal springs during spinal surgery on children in CHI at Temple Street Hospital was “wrong”. It found non-CE-marked springs were implanted into three children between 2020 and 2022.
In the aftermath of the report's publication, Dr Jim Browne resigned as chair of the board of CHI to allow for “renewed enthusiasm and passion to guide this great organisation”.
It has also emerged many hundreds of children may have undergone unnecessary hip surgeries at children’s hospitals over the past five years, with a draft report compiled for CHI by a British NHS consultant asserting nearly 80% of surgeries at one Dublin hospital may have been unnecessary.
Ms Stewart will tell PAC she knows there are “families impacted by other issues related to the orthopaedic service, specifically where reports are awaited”, adding those families “will be communicated with in the first instance” when the final reports are received, with that publication expected later this week.
CHI, along with the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board will be the first witnesses at the new iteration of PAC, in light of the controversies surrounding the hip surgeries and the much-delayed new National Children’s Hospital build.
It emerged at last week’s PAC hearing that former chief executive of CHI Eilish Hardiman, who left her role after former minister for health Stephen Donnelly declined to endorse her retention, came to a “settlement” with the organisation in order to keep her €177,000 salary while taking over a new strategic role, with that issue likely to feature at Thursday’s meeting with CHI.
Meanwhile, chief officer with the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board David Gunning is to tell the committee the ongoing delays to the new NCH is “a cause of great frustration”, describing the rate of construction by main contractor BAM as being “insufficient” to meet the agreed-upon substantial completion date of June 30 this year.
Mr Gunning will add early access to the build has not yet commenced, a fact which is likely to delay the commissioning of the €2.2bn hospital even further.
It emerged last weekend the Children's Hospital is now not expected to reach substantial completion before September of this year at the earliest, setting back the likely best-case-scenario go-live date of the hospital to June of next year.
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Temple Street scandal: how non-medical springs were implanted in children with scoliosis
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