Fears over Crumlin waiting lists

A leading orthopaedic surgeon has warned that delays for spinal surgery at Our Lady's hospital in Crumlin due to cutbacks makes no economic sense and could lead to further deformities in children.

Speaking this morning, Dr Patrick Kiely, a surgeon based at Crumlin children's hospital said that it was likely that fewer procedures would be carried out this year due to cutbacks.

He warned that this could lead to further deformities in children awaiting operations.

"One of the difficulties with children who have orthopaedic problems, whether it's spinal deformity or deformity in any part of the muscular skeletan system is that as they grow and as time goes on the deformity gets magnified in a high proportion of children," said Dr Kiely.

"Waiting or delay can lead to a clinical deterioration and an increase in magnitude or scale of the problem. If you have a tendency to deformity, growth is not your friend," he added.

A total of 168 children and adolescents are currently awaiting surgery for scoliosis in Crumlin.

According to the latest data, children awaiting surgery at the hospital last year deteriorated by average of 10 degrees while they were waiting for procedures to be performed.

In 2008, 104 patients were listed for surgery, of which just 40 were treated for major deformity correction involving some 67 operations.

Speaking on RTE Radio, Dr Kiely said that he and his collegues had "grave concerns" that they would be unable to undertake as many procedures this year because they were losing between 15 and 20 per cent of orthopaedic operating capacity because of the cut-backs.

Dr Kiely claimed that in addition to leading to a deterioration in the health of patients, it made little economic sense to postpone surgery.

"It is counterproductive to delay because the scale of the problem becomes so much worse that you are often talking about treatment for life and mulitple operations at an extremely high cost," he said.

In a statement released this evening the hospital said there would be "no further bed or theatre closures during the months of July and August". At present 25 beds and one operating theatre are closed at the hospital.

The hospital said “these measures will in turn mean that there will be longer waiting times for some children in relation to clinical assessment and waiting times for non emergency surgery.”

However, the statement said emergency procedures would not be affected by the cutbacks.

Co Kilkenny girl Jamie Murphy (11), whose family claims she has been denied life-saving surgery at the hospital for her severe scoliosis due to budget cutbacks which caused the procedure to be cancelled at Crumlin, is to undergo a spinal operation in London next month.

The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) said today it strongly rejected what it called "completely inaccurate and unsubstantiated claims" made in a number of newspapers that scoliosis procedures arranged by the Fund cost 'two to three times' more than similar procedures performed in the public hospital system.

"The prices the NTPF pays for operations are as competitive as the published prices for the public hospital system and no premium is paid for work done through the NTPF," it said in a statement.

A private member's motion is to be debated in the Dáil this week, calling on the Government to abandon cutbacks at Crumlin.