A SIX-YEAR-OLD girl from Co Cavan is due today to be the first Irish child to undergo a pioneering neurosurgical procedure in the UK, aimed at enabling her to walk unaided.
Casey Fitzgerald, who has cerebral palsy, will have an operation known as a selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR), which involves division of some of the nerves as they enter the spinal cord, to relieve constricting muscles caused by spasticity in the lower limbs.
The availability of this new version of SDR in Bristol’s Frenchay Hospital is good news for Irish families who, up to now, could only bring their children to the US for the potentially life-changing operation, which is recommended after the age of four for children with spastic diplegia, the most common form of cerebral palsy. However, although it would be available free under the NHS if they lived in Britain, there are significant costs involved.
The operation will cost about €28,000, and Casey’s mother, Tracey Fitzgerald, said her daughter, the youngest of five children, will require ongoing physiotherapy at home in Mullagh for the next two to four years, costing at least €600 a month.
Niamh Moriarty (5) from Killiney, Co Dublin, who featured in this supplement last November, is also now going to Bristol, instead of Missouri in the US, for the procedure and her surgery is scheduled for March 27th.
She too will be operated on by consultant neurosurgeon Kristian Aquilina, who trained with the pioneer of the technique, Dr TS Park, in St Louis Children’s Hospital, Missouri.
Both the Fitzgerald and Moriarty families have run successful fundraising appeals for their children’s treatment.
Eleven children have undergone SDR in Bristol since it was introduced there last May and, according to a spokesman for the hospital, it hopes to be able to treat up to 20 children this year.
