Window is closing to help our children

OUR children are precious gifts and should be treated as such. They are vulnerable, they need our care until they grow up and can begin to look after themselves. They trust adults to look after them to the best of their ability.

Why, then, is there so little shame when the world continually lets them down?

Take a look at the smile on the face of little Jack Dorrity in today’s paper.

Can anyone honestly say he does not deserve better, does not deserve the chance to enjoy the best life society is able to provide for him?

The Ballymena boy is six. His young life has been a constant battle against illness after he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was a year old. He remains on the waiting list for life-altering paediatric surgery, but time is running out.

The condition has begun to cause issues with his hips as painful muscle spasms — known as spasticity — gradually pull the bone from its socket.

As his condition deteriorates he is now facing losing all function in his legs. And the longer he waits, the less chance surgery will have of giving him the life he deserves.

Any society will be judged by how it treats the weakest and most vulnerable of its people. And the judgment will be harsh.

Waiting lists are now at a “catastrophic” level, but it is little comfort to parents who must sit back and watch their children suffer to know there are so many more in a similar situation.

Is that really what we want to put parents through?

All they get in reply is a “sorry” that any patient has to wait for surgery.

In the meantime there are constant words of “we need to do better” or “collaboration between departments” or “discussions about programmes being put in place to address concerns”.

Words alone can show sympathy, perhaps a little understanding, but they will not make anyone’s life easier.

They’ve all been said before and, in all likelihood, will be said again when the next despairing family step forward in the hope someone will listen to their suffering.

On Monday it was revealed that paediatric waiting lists for outpatient appointments have surged by 172.6% since 2016.

Last June, 22,272 children were languishing in line.

Miss the right window to treat a child or wait too long, and the consequences can be irreversible.

If the suffering of little children like Jack Dorrity doesn’t move those with the ability to effect change for the better, you wonder if anything ever will.