‘Our safety net is gone’
Alex Connolly has been profoundly disabled since birth. A sufferer of the genetic condition CDKLS, the 16-year-old is unable to walk, talk and cannot feed herself — making her fully dependent on those around her.
On Wednesday, 24 hours before the €130m HSE cutbacks were announced, the Bray girl’s parents were told vital respite care for the family and 300 others in south Dublin was being axed. Carmona Services, the group running the support on behalf of the HSE, has seen its funding cut by €2.5m this year.
Backroom savings were sought, but the cuts — repeated in other parts of the country in recent months — were too drastic not to affect frontline care.
As a result, Alex and severely disabled people like her have seen weeknight, emergency and holiday respite care for their families removed. Her mother Paula said she and her husband Alan cannot cope without it. It will break their hearts, but residential care may soon be the only option for their eldest daughter — costing the State more, and causing untold personal trauma for the family.
“Alex is severely, profoundly handicapped. She can’t feed herself, walk, talk and is fully dependent. She can’t do anything for herself,” her mother said. “She’s never had designated speech and language therapy, occupation therapy, physiotherapy, we’ve had to organise that ourselves. And even then it was only when they could fit us in.
“When we couldn’t cope in the past we could call the service and have respite care, a few hours or a night every few weeks. But now our safety net is gone. There’s not many options, we don’t want to do it but residential care might be the only one. Just go up and say there you go, Mr Reilly, we can’t cope. So you mind her.”
One family. One tiny fragment of a service for 4.5m people facing €130m in cuts this year and another €700m in 2013. You do the maths.
* Read more:
Cutbacks ‘will cost more than they’ll save’
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