Children's Health Ireland's spinal unit is on track to perform 520 spinal surgeries this year, a record. The head of the unit, Mr. Moore, criticizes the four-month waiting time target for scoliosis surgery, calling it arbitrary and clinically irrelevant.
The spinal unit at Children’s Health Ireland is set to complete 520 spinal surgeries this year, a record annual number. The target of a four-month waiting time for children needing surgery for scoliosis has “no clinical relevance” and is “used as a stick to beat us”, according to the head of the State’s paediatric spinal unit.
(CHI), the organisation responsible for providing healthcare services to children and young people in Ireland, said this is up about 12 per cent on the more than 460 surgeries completed in 2023, which Mr Moore attributed to increased resourcing and “protected resources”. The Government has consistently stated it wants to see no child waiting more than four months for spinal surgery after the target was initially set in 2017 by then minister for health. However, Mr Moore said the period of four months has “no clinical relevance” and that waiting times should be based on the clinical needs of a patient and not an “arbitrary” timeline. “I’m not trying to be controversial but we don’t, the clinicians don’t agree with that target. The formal target is a stick that we’re beaten with, you’re beating us with it again, but it’s not a clinical target. We want patients to be done in the appropriate clinical time frame.” Mr Moore said: “When we were given more resources and this spine unit was set up at the start of the year, obviously people had to take up their posts and any plans had to be implemented. So really the increase in activity only happened from about the summer. “The delivery of more cases was based on an upswing of really only on six month
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