Ideal care

WHENEVER Maureen O’Neill pulled open her hall door in Renard Point, she could see Valentia Island rising out of the Atlantic.

So when she got ill four years ago, it was a just a short journey to Valentia Island Cottage Hospital, where she was welcomed by staff and patients who knew her and her family.

It’s an ideal place, says her son Edward, a secondary school teacher in Killarney. “The staff know the family, the patient themselves — it’s more than a job to a lot of them. That’s what makes the difference between a community hospital and a large nursing home where people wouldn’t know each other.

“We always had a connection with Valentia: my grandfather and my great grandfather ran the mail ferry to Valentia. My grandfather was also Valentia harbour master at one stage.”

Two years before going into hospital, Maureen began to forget simple things, such as where she put the keys.

“She would get very agitated and that became worse as her memory grew worse,” says Edward.

Alzheimer’s disease was diagnosed. Maureen was put on medication, but then she got a seizure. After treatment in Tralee she was transferred to the Valentia hospital, which caters for people who are living on their own and who need full-time medical care.

Though initially lucid, she is now confined to bed. This week she celebrates her 85th birthday but no longer recognises her two children.

“I go down one weekend, my sister Geraldine [who lives in Tralee] goes down the next. We try to time it so we are feeding her and try to take pressure off the staff. With her dinner, it would take the bones of an hour to feed her. I feel I am doing something useful when I’m doing that rather than just calling and visiting,” says Edward.

He is philosophical about his mother’s deteriorating condition. “It’s acceptance more than grieving. We are lucky that she didn’t become aggressive with Alzheimer’s, as some patients do. She has no idea who we are and that is the hardest part.”

It’s a stark contrast to the independent younger woman who always welcomed people. A confectioner, she gave up work when she married, moving from her homeland of Foilmore.

With her husband working as a radio officer at sea — he died aged 49 — she reared the children along with the help of their paternal grandmother.

“She was very outgoing, a people’s person — every child in the parish had been into the house for buns and cakes,” says Edward. “Someone would call to see her every day. She loved meeting friends and going for walks. She had a great social life.”

Valentia Cottage Hospital is one of nine charities to benefit from this year’s Ring of Kerry Charity Cycle, on Saturday, July 5.