Disabled woman 15 years on waiting list

ROSIE BYRNE’S eyes say it all. They have to. She can’t speak.

Born with cerebral palsy, severely physically handicapped, moderately mentally handicapped, she makes her feelings known by way of facial expressions.

Her mother, Rosaleen Byrne, has looked after her for the first 25 years of her life. But with her own health problems, Rosaleen is desperately hoping for residential care for her daughter.

“I’m 57 years old. So is my husband John. We’re not getting any younger. Last year, out of the blue, I had to have a heart bypass. I ended up in Beaumont and they sorted me out. But they told me I was never to lift Rosie again.”

Rosie is in a special type of wheelchair that is very heavy. Her body is in a brace. She can’t sit up without it, she can only lie down on the floor. She has asthma. She weighs just four stone, but to lift, she is a dead weight.

“On a day when she has no school and I’m on my own in the house, I can’t lift her. Sometimes she gets sore from the brace so we take it off. She can sit then propped up against a beanbag.”

Rosie is good-humoured, affectionate and adored by her family. But the level of care she needs will soon be beyond her parents. She has been on a residential care waiting list for the past 15 years.

“Those who provide the service always suggest putting your child’s name down early, so that as the parents get older, the child will have a better chance of getting into care.

“A couple of years ago, I had no worries about her getting a place, because there was plenty of money. People I knew were getting their children placed locally.

“Now it’s a different story. The cutbacks are kicking in and there are always more people than places.”

For Rosaleen, from Grangemore Estate, Raheny, Co Dublin, her greatest wish is to see Rosie settled, in good hands, a promise of lifelong care. Other parents share her anxieties.

Rosie is one of 344 mentally handicapped people on St Michael’s House waiting list, in need of a full-time residential service; one of 1,711 nationwide.

Paul Ledwidge, chief executive of St Michael’s House, a service with 1,410 clients across 120 Dublin centres, says they are currently in crisis, such is the pressure on places.

Respite beds, normally used to give parents who are full-time carers a break, have to go instead to children orphaned by the death of parents. Mr Ledwidge currently has seven such clients.

He says unless they get funding for at least 40 beds in this year’s budget, they will have a huge crisis of mentally handicapped people with nowhere to live.