Chronically ill girl has medical card taken from her

Eight-year-old Eirin Nolan O’Connor is profoundly disabled and in constant chronic pain, needing up to 45 syringes and 18 boxes of medication a day — yet the HSE believes she doesn’t deserve a medical card.

So severe is her pain that for the past six weeks she has been receiving palliative care at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, where she is dosed with morphine. Even then, the pain is so excruciating that Eirin is self-harming, banging her head off objects in the hope that it will dull the pain.