Campaign groups representing families of children who have undergone surgery and those on waiting lists have called for a full public inquiry into spina bifida and scoliosis care at Children's Health Ireland (CHI).
Claire Cahill, co-founder of the Scoliosis Advocacy Network, said that the groups are looking for a meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, and that it should happen as a matter of urgency.
Úna Keightley, co-founder of the Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Paediatric Advocacy Group, said that some families are affected by the spinal surgery controversy alone and then unfortunately some families with spina bifida are affected by both, issues around spinal operations and the audit into hip operations.
"Some families have received multiple letters in relations to these controversies," she said.
At a joint-media briefing today, the two groups said they represent over 900 families across Ireland who have been fighting for safe and timely care for more than a decade.
Ms Keightley said that the families have been forced to become campaigners, researchers and watchdogs.
Campaigners said they met CHI in 2018 to raise concerns and that the institutions had consistently failed children.
They said that last year they asked the then-minister for health, Stephen Donnelly, to have the Health Information and Quality Authority review into unapproved spinal springs expanded to include other concerns raised by families, but this did not happen.
They said the repercussions of that decision are now visible with families reading in the media about alleged unnecessary hip operations and other issues.
They said they wrote to the Minister Carroll MacNeill on 18 March last seeking a meeting.
