A cry for help no one answered

The HSE spends millions on mental health awareness campaigns but thousands of families are begging for appropriate treatment for their loved ones and can’t access it. One Cork family tell their story to Claire O’Sullivan.

THE John Scannell that lies in a hospital bed bears but a fleeting resemblance to the husband, father and friend that people once knew.

Where once photographs showed a handsome face and a cheeky grin, there now lies a motionless body in a persistent vegetative state. An eerie silence hangs over him with the only sound in his hospital room, the echo of laughing nurses up the corridor.