A BOY SUFFERING with life-threatening scoliosis was removed from Children’s Health Ireland’s urgent scoliosis surgery waiting list, without his family being informed, his parents claimed.

Last February, the country was outraged at the health service after Harvey Sherratt’s parents Gillian Sherratt and Stephen Morrison shared a video of their son Harvey (8) struggling to breathe due to his condition worsening.

Then they explained that Harvey was one of hundreds of children waiting years for surgery, despite his continued dice with death as his spinal curve continued to twist his ribcage around his heart and lungs.

Now Harvey’s parents revealed that he was taken off Children’s Health Ireland’s active waiting list for surgery, despite three surgeons telling them that Harvey should have surgery to implant growth rods in his spine.

Speaking to this reporter today, Ms Sherratt said she and her husband “feel quiet broken and defeated by it all”.

“In terms of where we go from here and how we move forward, it’s very hard to say, until we get the answers to all the questions I’ve had.”

“If I hadn’t emailed CHI, how long would we have gone without knowing that Harvey had been removed from that list.”

In a SOS call to other parents of children that had been on the urgent scoliosis surgery list, Ms Sherratt said: “I am just hoping now that if other parents haven’t heard from the hospital in a while, that they will take this as their opportunity to contact the hospital and verify their own child’s status.”

“I would hate to think that there’s other parents of other kids out there waiting to hear something, and they may be completely unaware that their child might have also been removed from that list without a word.”

Ms Sherratt said they sought the opinion of four surgeons about Harvey having surgery, and that three of them said he should have it, but that the fourth surgeon recommended that Harvey be fitted with a body cast instead until they felt he was more suitable for surgery.

Ms Sherratt said the other three surgeons, including two from Ireland and one from the UK, told her that casting would not be suitable nor beneficial nor safe for Harvey due to the severity of his scoliosis and his other health issues including spina bifida, autism sensory issues, overheating, ichthyosis and eczema.

On August 30th last, Ms Sherratt sent an email to David Moore, consultant orthopaedic surgeon and clinical lead for spinal services at CHI, who has been tasked by the government to oversee a spinal surgery task force for children on the scoliosis waiting list, informing him that one of the three surgeons that was in favour of Harvey undergoing surgery had advised her that it would be “dangerous” for Harvey to be fitted with a body cast “as it would put too much pressure on his lungs”.

At the end of last August, when Ms Sherratt questioned CHI in an email as to why she had not received any correspondence from the health group in respect of a surgery plan for Harvey, while other families had received letters from CHI about their children’s surgery plans, she was informed that Harvey was actually “not on an Active Spinal Surgery waiting list”.

A CHI official told Ms Sherratt in an email dated August 30th that Harvey was no longer on the list “as per the Consultant’s clinical input from his previous appointments”.

In response, Ms Sherratt wrote to CHI that she found it “incredibly concerning that Harvey was removed from the active list without our consent or even us being formed of such” and she asked, “had I not raised the question, when would I have been informed?”

Ms Sherratt informed CHI that Harvey had not received any treatment or care plan, since last February, beyond the offer from one surgeon to put him in a body cast.

“Scoliosis is degenerative, and in Harvey’s case it is having a massive impact on his health and his general quality of life. Having no plan in place is just completely unacceptable and just absolutely reprehensible,” Ms Sherratt told CHI.

A curvature of the spine beyond 100 degrees is considered life-threatening, however Harvey’s spinal curve was recorded at 110 degrees when he visited Temple Street Hospital last January.

His previous surgeon Mr Connor Green has been on leave since last September after CHI referred him to the Medical Council when concerns were raised about patient outcomes and that a number of patients having been implanted with springs that were not approved for medical use.

Mr Green’s hiatus from performing surgery has exacerbated surgery waiting lists for children suffering with the most severe forms of scoliosis as well as other orthopaedic conditions requiring limb reconstruction, and he should be reinstated immediately to help tackle the waiting lists, Professor Damian McCormack, the head of paediatric orthopaedic surgery, Temple Street, has said.

In an email responding to Ms Sherratt’s concerns, head of the government appointed spinal task force, David Moore, stated, “I apologise for any misunderstanding that appears to have occurred” in respect of Harvey’s case.

Mr Moore informed Ms Sherratt that surgeons based in New York, in the United States, were visiting Ireland “to see only those patients who are on a surgical waiting list (and are deemed suitable for travelling to the US) which Harvey is not”.

Mr Moore told Ms Sherratt he would be “happy to facilitate” an appointment for Harvey to be reviewed by two Irish based surgeons, and that, “if Harvey is put on a surgical waiting list and is considered suitably fit, then the situation can be reviewed”.

Ms Sherratt replied to Mr Moore on September 10th, that her son had already linked up with the surgeons and that she is still awaiting answers as to, (A), why Harvey was removed from the surgery list, and, (B), why she and her husband Stephen Morrison were not immediately informed.

CHI was asked for comment today.