Mother goes it alone to meet son’s care needs

EVERY mother worries about her children so when Kay O’Shea’s 23-year-old son, Brendan, started to vomit every day before leaving home to attend a day service, she knew she had to act.

Kay, from Drogheda, Co Louth, discovered that Brendan, who has Down Syndrome, had been bullied by older service users at the centre and had been trying to put a brave face on it.

But, like a lot of parents of children with Down Syndrome, Kay was also reluctant to take her son out of the centre believing it was better than having him bored at home. It was only when she felt management had not dealt satisfactorily with the problem that she decided her son had suffered enough and removed him from the service.