Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has told the board of Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) that she expects the recommendations of last week’s report on the spinal surgery scandal to be implemented in full as soon as possible.
At a meeting on Monday, the Minister told the board of CHI, which operates paediatric hospital services in Dublin, that children in need of spinal surgery were still waiting too long for their operations.
The Minister also told the board it needed to do everything in its power to ensure that the new national children’s hospital was opened as safely and quickly as possible.
She is seeking an update by next week on the implementation of recommendations arising from the highly-critical report by health watchdog Hiqa into how non-authorised springs were implanted into several children as part of spinal operations carried out at Temple Street Children’s Hospital in Dublin.
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Health Service Executive chief executive Bernard Gloster is to meet the board and senior management of CHI on Tuesday.
CHI did not comment following the meeting between the board and the Minister.
The Department of Health said the Minister had pointed out that Hiqa had found what happened to a number of children who had undergone spinal surgery at Temple Street “was wrong, should not have happened and should not have been allowed to happen”.
She said Hiqa had found that these children had not been protected from the risk of harm, as they should have been.
The department said the Minister expected to get an update on the implementation of the recommendations on April 25th. She is to meet the CHI board again on April 28th.
“The Minister also discussed her concern at the length of time children are continuing to wait for spinal surgery,” the department said.
“While acknowledging the progress achieved under the spinal services management unit, the Minister emphasised the need for CHI to meet the needs of those children who continue to wait far too long for care, both within CHI and through both national and international outsourcing.”
CHI chairman Jim Browne resigned last week following the publication of the highly critical Hiqa report.
Hiqa found that use of the springs in some surgeries was an attempt to replicate an experimental surgical technique that was still under investigation at a hospital in another country, but in a modified way.
The watchdog said ethical approval had not been sought from any ethical research committee in CHI for the introduction of this new technique.
Hiqa, in its report, made 19 recommendations, including that CHI “review current organisation-wide corporate and clinical governance arrangements” to ensure clarity and effective assurance of safe, quality care.
Among other recommendations was that CHI “must develop a formal plan to address and resolve any outstanding issues relating to culture and alleged interpersonal relationship challenges within the orthopaedic services and any other services where such issues may be present so that patients are at the heart of service delivery”.
