A PLEDGE MADE by Simon Harris when he was the Minister for Health in 2017 has come back into the spotlight once again after a recent interview on Virgin Media Television.
The promise, which was made not long after Harris became Minister for Health, was that by the end of 2017 there would be no children waiting more than four months for spinal surgery needed to treat scoliosis.
In a Virgin Media interview on 13 November, the Taoiseach accepted that he had failed to deliver on that promise – but said the number of children waiting more than four months had come down significantly by the time he left his role as Minister for Health in June 2020.
“When I made that commitment – or indeed when the commitment was given to me by the HSE, but the buck stops with me – there were well over 200 children waiting over four months,” he said.
“When I left the Department of Health, and there had been a global pandemic, that number was down to 35.”
The Taoiseach appears to have got this figure wrong and since his 2017 promise, neither he as minister nor the government he leads has met the target set nearly eight years ago.
"There is a plan to get that number to 20 and below by Christmas," says Fine Gael leader @SimonHarrisTD as he addresses the delays in scoliosis surgeries for Irish children.
— Virgin Media News (@VirginMediaNews) November 13, 2024
Missed it? Catch up on Virgin Media Play: https://t.co/fYl4wEHFGP pic.twitter.com/TylSOQoGRZ
Scoliosis is a condition in which a person’s spine is irregularly curved to the side.
It most commonly occurs during growth spurts experienced in adolescence, although it can develop in adults too.
As well as causing pain, the curvature of the spine can lead to a range of other health problems; for example, it can affect a person’s breathing.
In severe cases, the required treatment is spinal surgery.
Because scoliosis can get worse if it goes untreated and can eventually result in a person becoming disabled, time is of the essence when it comes to getting an operation.
If a person suffering from scoliosis does not get surgery promptly, it can end up being too risky to operate, and therefore too late.
In one case highlighted last September, the mother 8-year-old Harvey Sherratt said:
“Scoliosis is degenerative, and in Harvey’s case it is having a massive impact on his health and his general quality of life.”
A curvature of the spine beyond 100 degrees is considered life-threatening and Harvey’s spinal curve was recorded at 110 degrees when he visited Temple Street Hospital last January.
Despite Harris’ 2017 pledge, there are still children waiting over four months for spinal surgery to treat scoliosis.
In October this year, current Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said there were 20 children with scoliosis waiting more than four months for surgery.
Donnelly said that any children waiting more than four months after Christmas would be offered treatment abroad.
Harris became Minister for Health in May 2016 and stayed in the role until June 2020.
The number of patients aged 18 or under waiting for scoliosis surgery was 236 at the end of December 2016, according to an Ombudsman for Children report from March 2017.
There was deep dissatisfaction among the public with not just the high number of children on waiting lists, but also the amount of time they were having to wait for surgery. In some cases, children had been waiting years.
In February 2017, Harris told RTÉ Radio: “We’re going to fix it. We’re going to make sure that by the end of this year no child waits longer in this country for a scoliosis procedure than four months.”
In April 2017 the overall number of children waiting for spinal surgery had risen to 312, according to an Ombudsman for Children report from 2018.
The Ombudsman also reported that at the end of 2017 there were 29 children who had been waiting more than four months for surgery, meaning Harris’s promise had not been fulfilled.
By June 2018, that number had risen to 34.
The overall number of children waiting for surgery did go down and by August 2018 there were 138 children on waiting lists.
In 2020, in a Parliamentary Question put to Harris’ successor in the Department of Health Stephen Donnelly, Sinn Féin TD Louise O’Reilly sought the number of children on surgery waiting lists broken down by length of time waiting.
Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), which governs and delivers acute paediatric services at Crumlin, Temple Street and Tallaght Hospitals, replied with figures covering spinal fusion surgery and “spinal other”.
Spinal fusion is not the only sugical treatment a person with scoliosis might need. For example, in the case of Harvey Sherratt mentioned above, he needed growth rods implanted in his spine.
According to official figures provided by CHI, when Harris finished his tenure as health minister in June 2020, there were 177 children waiting for spinal surgeries.
Of those, 138 had been waiting for three months or more, according to the HSE.
The figures are broken down into three-month periods, which makes it difficult to know the exact number who were waiting more than four months.
However, the number waiting more than six months in June 2020 was 83.
This is much higher than the 35 figure offered by Simon Harris in his Virgin Media interview last week.
Asked about the discrepancy, Fine Gael responded by saying that Harris was in fact not referring to 2020 – which is when he left office – but that he was instead talking about the figures at the end of 2019.
“The Taoiseach was referring to the end of year scoliosis waiting lists prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Waiting times worsened as a result of the pandemic,” a Fine Gael spokesperson told The Journal.
“At the end of 2019, following significant progress which was made after the four-month waiting time target was met, there were 34 children waiting for spinal fusion surgery longer than 3 months.”
However, Harris did not refer to 2019, he said “when I left the Department of Health”, which was in 2020.
The Taoiseach also did not specify “spinal fusion surgery” only.
Fine Gael offered a HSE reply to another Parliamentary Question from TD Róisín Shortall in 2019 as evidence of that 34 figure.
Shortall had asked for “the status of child waiting lists for scoliosis treatment by hospital and length of time”.
The HSE responded with official figures for spinal fusion and “spinal other” and the total number on the waiting lists was 87. Of those 87, a total of 52 children were waiting more than three months.
When counting the number of children on the list for spinal fusion surgery only (in 2019), the figure waiting more than three months was 34, as Fine Gael said.
Since Harris made his promise in 2017, the target has never been met.
According to CHI’s latest report, published in October 2024, there were 247 children on waiting lists, 118 of whom are classified as “active”, meaning they are ready for surgery and are awaiting a date.
Of those 118 children, 72 had been waiting more than three months.
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