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The state faces a raft of legal cases over the treatment of children who had hip surgeries as parents brace themselves for the release of an audit of potentially unnecessary procedures.
In a recent Sunday Times Ireland article, Avril Scally, Head of our Medical Negligence & Personal Injury Team contributed extensive commentary on the recent controversy around potentially unnecessary hip surgeries being performed on hundreds of young children at two Dublin hospitals.
Children’s Health Ireland (“CHI”) last week confirmed that it has sent letters to 2,259 families of children who received hip surgery over a 15-year period. The letters said an early recommendation of the audit was for follow-up care with children who had surgery for developmental dysplasia of the hip.
Avril Scally said we are "receiving a growing number of enquiries from increasingly panicked and distressed parents in light of the recent reports surrounding hip dysplasia surgeries at the CHI."
"The Independent Review commissioned by the CHI have already identified 561 cases for review and it’s believed that a number of these did not meet the clinical criteria for surgical intervention. Alarmingly, there has been further revelations that unnecessary surgeries may have been occurring as far back as 15 years ago."
"I suspect that this is the tip of the iceberg, and we are only beginning to uncover the scale of the issue and it’s likely that litigation will follow."
"These families are understandably worried and anxious and don’t know where to turn and are concerned about the health implications for their children. Some have received letters from the hospital and other remain in the dark."
"Given the volume of concern and the serious nature of the questions being asked, I suspect there will be an influx of people requesting medical records from the various hospitals, which may result in significant delays in processing these requests, which will only add to the distress that these families are already facing. Once records are obtained, these will need to be independently reviewed by an independent paediatric orthopaedic surgeon to assess whether the surgeries were clinically justified."
"It’s clear that the families need answers, and they need them quickly."
Further Information
For further details or if you have any concerns about hip surgery that your child has undergone in Ireland, please contact Avril Scally, Partner and Head of our award-winning Medical Negligence & Personal Injury Team.
For further guidance, see our prior articles Unnecessary Hip Surgeries on Children: 15-Year Concern and Report: Hundreds of Unnecessary Hip Surgeries on Young Children.