Tim cycles 275km to plead for daughter’s medical card

After a cycle that took a day and a half, a Cork father was met by Independent TD and special needs campaigner Finian McGrath, as he arrived in Dublin with a letter for the Taoiseach calling on him to intervene in the HSE’s refusal to grant his daughter, who has Down’s syndrome, a medical card.

Lucy O’Brien, who turns three next month, has sight and hearing problems. She also has speech difficulties and won’t be able to walk unaided. In the past year alone, she has attended her GP on at least 13 occasions.

When the little girl was born, the O’Brien family were given a two-year medical card on the basis of her “medical needs” but now this card has been revoked by the HSE even though her health problems have worsened.

“Lucy will never walk without a brace or orthotics. In the past two years her health has deteriorated, not improved. The criteria for a discretionary medical card has not changed, yet somehow she is now no longer deemed eligible,” her father, Tim said.

Before he set off on the 275km cycle to Dublin, Tim, from Ballyphehane in Cork City, dropped similar letters to Simon Coveney, the agriculture minister, in his office in Carrigaline and to the offices of Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer and Dara Murphy at Glasheen and Camden Quay.

“Those guys got my vote and that of my brother on the grounds that Lucy’s medical card would not be taken away. They all told us that it would not happen under their watch but it has,” he said.

He also posted an emotional letter to his daughter on his Facebook page where he described how the cycle to Dublin stemmed from a promise he made to her on the day she was born.

“On that day, we promised you that we would teach you everything you could learn, and where we couldn’t teach you something, we would have your back. You have embraced life with laughter and joy and so this cycle is me keeping my promise,” he wrote.

More than 8,000 people have already shown their support for the cycle on Tim’s Facebook page.

A huge fan of Cork GAA, Tim arrived in Dublin at 3pm on Saturday and remained in the capital so he could attend the All-Ireland Hurling Final.

As previously revealed by the Irish Examiner, the number of discretionary medical cards provided by the HSE has fallen from just over 80,000 in Dec 2010 to 59,000 by this summer.