Paul Murphy demands answers on unnecessary children's surgeries
Paul Murphy challenged the minister over surgeons who he says performed hundreds of unnecessary surgeries on children, calling for suspensions and a full review of osteotomies. He raised concerns about private insurance payments, the scope of the review by CHI, and the exclusion of cases before 2010.
Paul Murphy asked why surgeons who performed hundreds of unnecessary surgeries on children are still operating, specifically naming Temple Street and Kappa. He told the minister the surgeons should be suspended and argued they should at least be barred from carrying out osteotomies.
He questioned whether there is any ongoing investigation into motive, saying a surgeon would receive about €1,500 for doing one side and a further €750 for the other when a child had private health insurance. He warned this payment structure could have distorted clinical decisions and described the role of private money in a public health system as poisonous.
Paul Murphy pressed for a full review of every osteotomy to establish whether each operation was medically necessary, not merely whether there were complications. He said the review should be carried out across the board without relying on parents to request it, while acknowledging parents would still need to consent to further action.
He challenged the decision to exclude children treated earlier than 2010, noting osteotomies of this type began in 2002. He argued earlier patients still deserve to know if they were wrongly operated on and that skeletal maturity should not be a reason to withhold review.
Allegations and immediate demands
Paul Murphy asked why surgeons who performed hundreds of unnecessary surgeries on children are still operating, specifically naming Temple Street and Kappa. He told the minister the surgeons should be suspended and argued they should at least be barred from carrying out osteotomies.
Financial incentive and motive
He questioned whether there is any ongoing investigation into motive, saying a surgeon would receive about €1,500 for doing one side and a further €750 for the other when a child had private health insurance. He warned this payment structure could have distorted clinical decisions and described the role of private money in a public health system as poisonous.
Scope and nature of the proposed review
Paul Murphy pressed for a full review of every osteotomy to establish whether each operation was medically necessary, not merely whether there were complications. He said the review should be carried out across the board without relying on parents to request it, while acknowledging parents would still need to consent to further action.
Questions over excluded time periods
He challenged the decision to exclude children treated earlier than 2010, noting osteotomies of this type began in 2002. He argued earlier patients still deserve to know if they were wrongly operated on and that skeletal maturity should not be a reason to withhold review.
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Transcript
Minister I have a number of questions. First question is why are the surgeons who performed hundreds of unnecessary surgeries on children, why are they still operating? Surgeon B could go into Temple Street tomorrow and do an osteotomy. They're not being prevented from doing that. There's a lot of talk of rebuilding trust and so on but all that seems very previous to me when literally the surgeons who are responsible are still operating in Temple Street and in Kappa. I think they should be suspended but at the very least they should be suspended from carrying out osteotomies. Secondly, is there any ongoing investigation into motive? My understanding is that if a child had private health insurance, a surgeon would get around €1,500 for doing one side and get another €750 on top for doing the other. That is a significant incentive that may well have distorted the best health outcome for children and shows the poisonous role of private money in a public health system. Thirdly, Minister, are you confident that CHI agrees with you when you say there's going to be a full review of every osteotomy that was done and to see whether they needed that operation? Not just that there's no complications but whether they actually needed that operation, that the parents don't need to request that, of course they'll need to consent to it, but that it should be across the board. You might check that CHI has the same understanding of it as you do. And fourthly, why are children earlier than 2010 being excluded? So that they're no longer children? Okay. But at the moment what's mentioned here, say in the CHI press statement, is all of them being studied from 2010 at Temple Street. We know that these operations, these novel osteotomies started in 2002. It doesn't seem to be there's any good reason to leave them out. I mean, the argument is, well, they've reached skeletal maturity, but, you know, they still deserve to know, were they wrongly operated on or not? That still may have implications for their health into the future. Thank you, Deputy Murphy. Thank you, Deputy Murphy. And now we...