Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The situation which reveals itself in the case of Sophia is shameful. I met her father a couple of weeks ago in Dún Laoghaire and he told me of her case. He has since told me that, in 2015, he wrote to then Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, who told him that no child would be waiting for scoliosis surgery for longer than 15 months. At that time, Sophia had to wait 16 months following her initial diagnosis in 2013. More recently, the Minister for Health said no child will wait longer than four months for surgery. Sophia was placed on the urgent list in April 2017 and, without having had her surgery, she was removed from it in August 2018, which is 17 months later. The Government, at the highest level, through the Taoiseach and Minister for Health, has let this young girl down. Sophia suffers from scoliosis. Her condition is deteriorating and she could face the possibility of emergency surgery because the screws in the rod in her spine, which goes into her hip, are loose. Her internal organs are being affected and the curvature of her spine is worsening. This deterioration may impact on her ability to undergo surgery. It is not fair to put a child, and her parents, through that suffering and pain.

As stated by Deputy O'Reilly, this is linked to the wider issue of 52 people having been removed from the surgery list, giving the impression that the list has reduced when in fact these people have only been moved to what is known as a "suspended list" and still need surgery. Many of them have complex needs and the State is letting them down. This is not acceptable and I want to know what the Government intends to do about it.

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