The parents of Harvey Morrison Sherratt, who died last July following a long wait for scoliosis surgery, said they are to meet with Tánaiste Simon Harris next Monday.
Gillian Sherratt and Stephen Morrison have called for Mr Harris to resign from politics over continued and prolonged waiting lists for children requiring scoliosis surgery and inadequate services for children born with spina bifida.
In 2017, while he was Minister for Health, Mr Harris pledged no child would wait longer than four months for spinal surgery. Born with spina bifida, hydrocephalus and developing scoliosis, Harvey was also partially paralysed and non-verbal.
He died on July 29, eight months after surgery, having waited years for his operation. Mr Harris spoke by phone to the family following Harvey’s death, however, Ms Sherratt said this conversation was ‘a bit too little, too late, in my opinion’.
She added: ‘You know, he made that promise in 2017 and then last year, he had stood up in the Dáil and said that he’d meet us, and he didn’t and that’s one of the big reasons that we’ve been calling him out.’
Ms Sherratt said she and other families with children requiring surgery and advocacy groups had for ‘years’ told the Tánaiste and other politicians about their ‘concern’ about scoliosis and spina bifida services run by Children’s Health Ireland (CHI). ‘I feel like if he’d listened, maybe things would have been different and Harvey would still be here today,’ Ms Sherratt said, speaking as a guest on the Late Late Show on Friday night. ‘I said to him that it’s a pity that it took our child dying to have him willing to meet us now, because he ignored me when I tried last year.
‘He (Mr Harris) was incredibly apologetic but as far as I’m concerned, an apology doesn’t help these children. ‘So we’re going to meet with him on September 29 and we’re going to be outlining exactly what we need to see real change for these children and until then, we won’t stop.’
Harvey’s parents will also ask Mr Harris to support their call for a statutory inquiry into CHI’s handling of Spina Bifida and scoliosis services. The have also called for the HSE to disband the CHI and take over the running of these services, as well as the long-awaited new children’s hospital.
Ms Sherratt said in August 2024, she discovered that Harvey’s name was inexplicably no longer on CHI’s urgent surgery waiting list after she contacted it about his surgery plan when the curve on his spine had reached life-threatening proportions. At that stage Harvey’s ribcage was twisted, crushing his lungs and putting pressure on his heart.
She said: ‘At the end of August 2024 we found out, without anyone telling us, they’d removed him from the surgical list with a curve of 110 degrees and no plan. We still don’t know why.’ Mr Morrison said they still have not been told why this happened: ‘We have asked the question numerous times and that answer hasn’t been given to us.’
Harvey’s mission to have surgery was beset by delays which his parents said they are still in the dark about. Ms Sherratt said her son was added to the urgent surgical waiting list in February 2022 and his surgery was initially planned for August 2022 ‘but August came and went and we heard nothing’. She added: ‘And then in March of 2023 we got a letter in the door with a date for surgery for April, but that was very quickly cancelled without any explanation.
‘Then in that year, Harvey’s health really started to take a decline, and we were finding that they weren’t reviewing him as often as they had been.’ Ms Sherratt said her son’s case is not an isolated one and that if there is not change in governance at CHI ‘it’s only going to get worse’ for children still waiting for surgery and supports. Health Minister Jennifer Carroll McNeill, said last week she is ‘not satisfied’ with CHI’s spinal surgery plans for 2025 and wanted further explanation as to how it was going to reduce the surgery waiting lists. CHI said it was ‘actively working’ to reduce wait times
