The T\u00e1naiste will face a motion of no confidence over his handling of children\u2019s healthcare.<\/p>\n
Aont\u00fa said it was bringing the motion against Simon Harris due to a \u201cfailed promise\u201d on child spinal surgeries and overall \u201cdysfunction\u201d in Children\u2019s Health Ireland (CHI).<\/p>\n
Party leader Peadar T\u00f3ib\u00edn told reporters on Tuesday: \u201cWe believe, if you look at the crisis within CHI and the crisis within the National Children\u2019s Hospital that Simon Harris is not fit to be a minister in this Government, and we are calling for his resignation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vote will be held on Wednesday, October 22nd, two days before the presidential election in which the candidate for Mr Harris\u2019s Fine Gael \u2013 former party deputy leader Heather Humphreys \u2013 will go up against left-wing independent Catherine Connolly.<\/p>\n
The motion follows a series of scandals at CHI, including the implanting of non-surgical springs into child patients, unnecessary hip surgeries, the security of health records, and issues around in-sourcing.<\/p>\n
We are going to launch a motion of no confidence into Simon Harris in relation to the crisis that has happened over the summer with regards to CHI<\/p>\n
Peadar Toibin<\/p>\n
It also comes after the death of a nine-year-old renewed focus on child spinal surgery waiting times.<\/p>\n
While health minister in 2017, Mr Harris pledged that no child would wait more than four months for scoliosis treatment.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, nine-year-old Harvey Morrison Sherratt died after waiting years for spinal surgery during which time the curve in his spine went from 75 degrees to 130 degrees.<\/p>\n
By the time Harvey received spinal surgery last December, the curve had reached the point where it could not be fully corrected.<\/p>\n
The curve caused his rib cage to twist around his lungs and heart, severely restricting his breathing.<\/p>\n
Harvey died on July 29th. His parents, Stephen Morrison and Gillian Sherratt, have also called for Mr Harris\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters at Leinster House on Tuesday, Aont\u00fa leader Mr T\u00f3ib\u00edn said: \u201cWe are going to launch a motion of no confidence into Simon Harris in relation to the crisis that has happened over the summer with regards to CHI.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cDuring the summer, there was a tragic loss of Harvey Sherratt, a young boy who waited for months in relation to trying to receive an operation that was a life-saving operation that he needed to be able to survive and to be able to live in good health.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd tragically, Harvey Sherratt\u2019s life was lost during the summer and we, as a party, believe in the necessity for accountability \u2013 both accountability in terms of the finances of the country but also, most importantly, in terms of human life.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimon Harris, when he was Minister for Health, stated that no child would wait for more than four months for a scoliosis operation.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe failed significantly in that promise and we have a situation where hundreds of children in that period of time have been forced to wait for far longer than those four months.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The T\u00e1naiste will face a motion of no confidence over his handling of children\u2019s healthcare. Aont\u00fa said it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-80519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}