Her child, who is two-years-old, was subjected to an operation on one hip, and then immediately afterwards told that another was needed on the other hip.
She is now sure that the first operation was “at best premature,” but the second was “not needed at all,” said Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty in the Dáil,
The case was only being acknowledged now that a solicitor had been engaged, he said.
“The draft audit is shocking. It is devastating. It is damning,” Mr Doherty said, before making serious allegations.
“The draft audit states that 60pc of surgeries in one hospital, and 80pc of surgeries in another hospital were unnecessary.
“Just let that sink in. Let it sink in for a moment. Children as young as one have had their hips opened up, cutting into their bones.
“They’ve had to learn how to walk again. They’ve been left with scars for their life, and now to find out that these surgeries may have been unnecessary?
“Imagine having to bring your two-year-old little girl into that operating table, having to leave her in the hands of the system, only to find out that the surgery, the pain, the learning how to walk again, that scar that she has on her hip, was now never, ever necessary.
“The experience of so many parents out there is the experience of one mother who he spoke to today.
“In 2015, she brought her little girl, two years of age, for surgery on her right hip. It was the only hip that was ever mentioned in all of the assessments.
“After the operation, she was told that she needed surgery on the other hip as well. She described feeling like a rabbit caught in the headlights, but like any parent, she followed the medical advice, and after five weeks, her daughter had the second operation.
“A letter dropped in her letterbox seven weeks ago. She was immediately concerned. She sent 30 emails over a period of five weeks to CHI without one response. Only when she got her solicitor involved did she get a response.
“She sought a second medical opinion. She is now sure that the first hip operation at best, was premature and the second operation wasn’t needed at all.”
Helen McEntee, Minister for Education, taking Leaders’ Questions, said not a single person could comprehend the possibility of a child’s surgery not being necessary.
As a mother of two young children herself, the thought was “terrifying”, she said, and the Government was determined to get to the bottom of it.
“Any surgeries at the moment, there is a multidisciplinary team that sit down and looks at the situation before any surgery is carried out,” she said.
The same practice would not take place.
She said that her information was that the Minister for Health would get the audit report next week.
Cian O’Callaghan said the Government was “working away on some of the recommendations” by sending out letters to patients from 2010 onwards, and asked why other draft findings were not being made plain.
Ms McEntee said it was “unhelpful” that some of the information was being published online.
She claimed that parents did not want “unpublished comment being published elsewhere and not coming through the minister”.
Mr Doherty said the case highlighted was not an isolated one.
“Every family I’ve spoken to over the last two months are looking for one thing more than anything else. They want to know if the surgery that was carried out and their child was necessary or not,” he said.
He said the audit report, when it landed, “is not going to give them that answer” because it is an anonymised study.
“It won’t give them the individual answer. You’re asking parents to wait. You’re asking parents to trust the process, but trust has completely broken down.
“So the simple question that every single one of those 2,260 anxious families (who have received letters from CHI and the National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh) is whether their child was operated on necessarily or unnecessarily.”
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