Hundreds of children put through unnecessary hip surgeries in Dublin hospitals – report

By Cate McCurry, PA

A report has uncovered that unnecessary hip surgeries were carried out on hundreds of young children at two Dublin hospitals, the Dáil has been told.

Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty said that according to an audit, children aged between one and seven were subjected to the unnecessary surgeries at Cappagh and Temple Street hospitals

Mr Doherty said it was alleged that the surgeries were conducted “purely for financial gain”.

The report claims that hundreds of children on whom surgery was carried out did not meet the threshold for that surgery.

According to the audit, 561 children went through hip surgeries since 2021.

The audit found that 79 per cent of those operated on at Cappagh hospital and 60 per cent of those at Temple Street did not meet the threshold for surgery.

“They were unnecessary. The report recommends that all of these children be recalled and independently assessed,” Mr Doherty told the Dáil.

“Will the minister imagine for a second that he was the parent of one of these children who were operated on?

“Can he imagine the absolute horror of thinking that your child was put through the trauma of surgery when they did not need it?

“The daughter of one of the parents who made with us was only four years of age when she went through this operation.

“She received a letter from the hospital at Cappagh to inform her of the clinical audit into these surgeries just a couple of weeks ago. She is devastated.

“She says that she is sick to her stomach that her daughter might have been operated on unnecessarily. She says that it is a horrifying situation to be in as a parent.

“Her daughter was born prematurely and endured lots of challenges in her first weeks of life.

“This was followed by treatment for hip dysplasia, which may have resulted in a surgery that did not need to happen.”

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said that clinicians are providing the “final input” into the report.

“That final input will be available to the author of the report very shortly, if it has not already been shared,” Mr Donohoe said on Thursday.

“I am certain that, when the process is complete, this work will be shared with the Department of Health, the hospitals and those who lead them.

“At that point, a number of further priorities will then become urgent.

“The first will be to communicate clearly with the families of children who may have been affected and to share with them, in a transparent and open way, the conclusions of this report, acknowledging the distress and worry that many face.

“The second will be to look at what further actions, if any, are needed to respond to the consequences of any operations that took place.

“The third relates to a core theme of the audit that will have taken place.

“We will need to understand if and why this happened in the first place and what the consequences of it are.”

Mr Donohoe said the Government is taking the allegations “seriously”.

He added: “It is all about ensuring that any surgical practice that took place during that period was carried out in a way that was consistent with international standards and the care that any family would expect when entrusting our health professionals with a child’s care.”