Harvey's parents 'shocked' by waiting list claims

Govt urged to 'get to bottom of it' after boy wrongly labelled 'palliative'

- BY DAVID RALEIGH

THE parents of nine-year-old Harvey Morrison Sherratt have said they were “shocked” at claims that Children's Health Ireland had removed their son from its active spinal surgery waiting list after it wrongly determined he was a “palliative” patient.

The protected disclosure by a CHI insider, seen by this reporter, alleges the boy was later deemed to be “suitable for surgery once bone density is improved" by a consultant surgeon based at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), who had examined the boy in Dublin in May 2024.

The whistleblower's disclosure alleges that despite senior CHI staff being made aware of this, management were misinformed that the GOSH consultant had in fact "agreed with the CHI opinion" that the boy was "not fit or ready for surgery".

"Even if Harvey was palliative, which I can say 100% he was not, why is that not in his medical records, why was he not linked to a palliative care team? It makes no sense," said Harvey's mother Gillian Sherratt yesterday.

"Harvey wasn't even on prescription pain relief, which you'd think would be the very least a child receiving palliative care would be getting.

Ms Sherratt said the claims made in the protected disclosure came as a "huge shock" to her and her husband, Stephen Morrison.