Mother appeals to State to help care for disabled son

A 73-YEAR-OLD Co Waterford woman has made an emotional appeal for reassurances that the State will take care of her profoundly mentally and physically handicapped son when she dies.

Helen Collender has spent 30 years asking a simple question of the State, the Department of Health and the South Eastern Health Board. “I’ve been asking the question - what will become of Vincent if I go?” she said. “To date, I’ve had no response.”

Vincent’s disability is so profound he can’t speak, has no use of his limbs, is not toilet trained and sleeps in a cot. Each day the 34-year-old’s elderly mother is helped to wash, dress and feed him.

“My last prayer every night is ‘when I’m too old to dream, will the angels come and carry him home?’” she said.

As recently as two weeks ago, Helen and her husband James, a retired farmer, were told by a social worker that no funding exists for a full-time place for Vincent, nor was there likely to be any time soon.

“I would like Vincent to live in the love and care of his family home for as long as he can,” Helen said. “I’m not looking for some institute to say ‘we’ll take him in now’, I just want an assurance that if I get sick tonight someone will mind him,” she said.

Helen said she has ruled out as “criminal” the possibility that Vincent’s grown-up siblings would be left to take care of him. “I wouldn’t want to see any member of my family suffer for 30 years,” she said.

The Collender family’s fight for help began when their son was just a child. Attempts to find a school or place for him in his youth proved fruitless and it wasn’t until he was 13 that the Sisters of Charity in Waterford city offered some service.

“I looked at him banging his head off the floor for 13 years,” Mrs Collender explains. He never received speech therapy or any special help to aid his early development.

“I hope someday to find it in my heart to forgive the health board and the State for depriving him of any hope there may have been,” his mother explained emotionally.

Vincent currently makes an 80-mile round trip to the Ealton daycare centre run by the Brothers of Charity and the family are very grateful for this service. But what happens to him down the road remains a concern.

“Can you kindly tell me, will there be a place for the child when I’m no longer around?” Helen asked.

The South Eastern Health Board would not comment on the case. In a statement, it said: “Referral to a service or a residential unit will vary according to the disability in question and the needs assessment process involved. Services are subject to available resources and priority waiting lists.”

The Department of Health commented: “The position in relation to residential care for Vincent Collender is a matter for the SEHB.”