The mother of Harvey Morrison Sherratt has said that effectiveness is more important than speed of an inquiry into the care of children with scoliosis and spina bifida.
On Wednesday, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Tánaiste Simon Harris agreed to bring a recommendation to Cabinet to establish a statutory public inquiry into spinal care for children with scoliosis and spina bifida.
Politicians met advocacy groups and the parents of the late Harvey Morrison Sherratt on Wednesday evening. Harvey, who had scoliosis and other health issues, died aged nine in July after waiting a number of years for surgery.
The meeting with the Tánaiste and Minister for Health comes after a whistleblower’s allegations about the care provided to the nine-year-old boy were publicly shared, including that he was allegedly removed from a surgery waiting list without his parents’ knowledge or consent.
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“Our concern isn’t with how fast it is done. Our concern is always with how effective it is. We want it to be efficient, but it’s such a large undertaking,” she told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland.
“We’re talking about hundreds of children, if not thousands of children going back decades across multiple hospital sites.”
She said it is important the inquiry has the power to compel individuals to co-operate.
When asked about the protected disclosure that alleged that Harvey was removed from a surgery list because he was listed as palliative, Ms Sherratt said it was like “a gut punch”.
“It was disgusting. To think that someone would talk about our child in such a regard, so the language contained within the protected disclosure was like a gut punch. I don’t see how it could be done accidentally, but that’ll have to go through the protected disclosures commission to get the answers that we need in that regard, but it’s just, I feel like they wrote him off.”
Ms Sherratt said the protected disclosure had not been tabled for discussion during the meeting with the Minister for Health and the Tánaiste.
