The Aontú Leader Peadar Tóibín TD has called on CHI to answer questions over their financial accounts, before they are taken over by the HSE.
Speaking today Deputy Tóibín said: “We in Aontú very much welcome the announcement today that Children’s Health Ireland are to be integrated into the HSE by 2027, we have long called for this to happen. However, there are a number of outstanding questions for the organisation to answer, and they should not be permitted to cease their existence without answering these questions. We know that CHI has yet to publish their 2024 annual report, which is quite extraordinary. We can see from their 2023 annual report that while sitting on endless scoliosis waiting lists and overseeing multiple scandals involving really sick children, CHI is sitting on over €36 Million in public donations in their accounts”
Deputy Tóibín continued: “I’ve been told that many suspect the reason CHI is sitting on this money is because they may need it to kit out the new National Children’s Hospital when it opens, but this is not acceptable when we have children whose spines are curving beyond 100 degrees for want of surgery. The Scoliosis Advocacy Network has also gathered statistics in recent days which are very worrying. There’s been €11.6 million allocated for international outsourcing of children’s spinal surgeries. This was allocated in January. There are currently over 230 children on a waiting list for scoliosis surgery. There are no children at all currently scheduled for surgery abroad. There are currently 16 scheduled for surgery in the Blackrock clinic”.
“I know from talking to parents of children on these waiting lists that in some cases children are ‘aging’ off the lists – they are being removed from the lists because they’ve waited so long for surgery that they are no longer children, and are being moved off the CHI waiting list over to the Mater. Simon Harris over one year ago in the Dáil told me he would be reaching out to the HSE and Department of Health to ascertain how many children were removed from waiting lists without their parents’ knowledge. He has not clarified that issue. The government’s mantra when it comes to scoliosis is that surgeries are not taking place for clinical reasons decided by the surgeons. This is misleading. In some cases surgeries are being cancelled due to a lack of aftercare, post-surgical beds. In other cases the child has become inoperable because of the length of time they’ve been left waiting. So these so called ‘clinical reasons’ are somewhat the responsibility and fault of the government and CHI. We need absolute clarity from CHI, before they disappear, on how much money they have in their accounts, why they are not spending it, and why they are not scheduling surgeries for abroad at this time”, concluded Tóibín.
