Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business that No. 10 on the Order of Paper be taken before No. 1. No. 10 involves seeking leave to introduce the Health (Scoliosis Treatment Services) Bill 2024. It is seven years since the then Minister of Health and current Taoiseach, Deputy Simon Harris, promised that all scoliosis treatments would be afforded within a period of four months. He recently stated on radio that he had the enthusiastic support of the HSE for dealing with the crisis relating to scoliosis treatment. That is a long time ago. Recently, when he was under pressure, the Minister of Health, Deputy Donnelly, announced the establishment of a paediatric spinal task force. He appointed my good friend Mr. Mark Connaughton SC as the independent chair of that group. Currently, 775 children are waiting for orthopaedic surgeries in Ireland, including 289 who have been on the waiting list for more than a year. There are 288 children on a waiting list, 35 of whom have been waiting for one year. The position with waiting lists for children in need of neurology procedures are equally bad, with 430 waiting for surgery, one third of whom have been waiting in excess of one year. It has also been reported that 4,000 children with scoliosis are currently waiting on their first consultation.

This is a major problem. I am not here to make party-political points, but I am going to say this: the fact that the Minister for Health announced a task force to deal with this seven years after his predecessor promised there would be a maximum wait of four months for treatment raises the question as to why we need a task force. Do we not have a thing called the HSE? Does it not owe a duty to these patients to act more rapidly and effectively than it has done? The effect of the Bill to which I refer would be to require the HSE, which is the responsible body, to establish and maintain a treatment service for the timely and effective treatment of scoliosis patients. This is about putting a statutory duty on it to ensure that at all times, there are resources and that personnel are in a position to deal with this. The legislation would put the Minister of Health under a duty to the Houses of the Oireachtas to report regularly as to whether his Department and the HSE are meeting the political commitments they made. I understand that Senator Boyhan will be seconding the amendment.