Tuesday, February 9, 2010 Previous editions
Saturday, May 23, 2009
HEALTH service chiefs have been urged to cancel plans to make cuts of €9 million in wards and theatres at a major children’s hospital by a woman whose son is almost entirely dependent on the facility.
Speaking ahead of today’s noon protest in support of Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, 35-year-old Aisling McNiffe, from Straffan in Co Kildare, explained that without the expert care currently available her son Jack’s life would be in serious jeopardy.
The four-year-old, who sees Crumlin as "his second home," has Down syndrome, cardiac defects, chronic lung disease, and the rare Cinca syndrome, which means he is likely to be at risk of arthritis, blindness, and a host of other conditions should he survive childhood.
He is currently on 15 separate medications for the illnesses, has never been able to eat solid foods, and already in his short life has undergone a series of surgeries, including two for cardiac problems before he was three-months-old.
Services are already stretched at the hospital, but if further cuts are imposed Ms McNiffe said both patients and staff will no longer be able to cope.
"It is already difficult before these cuts, but if they come in I don’t know what will happen.
"Jack’s been in the intensive care unit eight times in his life already, he’s very sick, but even at that he had a stomach surgery operation cancelled three times last September. I had to personally write to Mary Harney to do something about it, but even then he was seven weeks waiting for the operation and he couldn’t take in any food at all, it was all on a drip.
"He lost two kilos in that time. There’s no beds available half the time, children are being moved from ICU to make space for others. Every day, operations are being cancelled," she said.
Patients Together spokesperson Janette Byrne said concerns over the safety of Jack and other vulnerable children are the reason for the national protest outside the facility today.
The protest, organised by the patient group and the People Before Profit Alliance, is in support of the facility, which has been told the multi-million cuts will result in the closure of three wards, an operating theatre, the loss of staff, and reductions in outpatient services.
As a result of the concerns raised by the planned cutbacks, HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm has been ordered to appear before the Oireachtas Health Committee, with the cross-party group warning that any reduction in services would be unacceptable and could endanger patient care.
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