Sick of waiting: a carer’s story

I AM a full-time carer (with my own disability) looking after my 91-year-old disabled father, a stroke sufferer since August 2000.

Recently I had to call a doctor at 2am as he was greatly agitated and had a high temperature. I feared a relapse of the pneumonia he had suffered last August).

My father was admitted to Cork University Hospital between 3am and 3.30am and was put on a trolley. I stayed with him until 7.30am, and when I left he was frightened and very distressed.

He finally got a bed at 3pm after 12 hours on a trolley. Despite Health Minister Mary Harney’s assertion that it can be a pleasant experience, it was not.

After 10 years of the Celtic Tiger, why so? I have had almost 21 years of caring firstly for my late mother, who often had to spend 12-14 hours on a trolley 10 years ago.

Nothing has changed. My father broke his hip in January 1998 and had to wait 12 hours for a hospital bed. When he suffered a major stroke in August 2000, he was put on a trolley again for 12 hours.

It seems Ms Harney and the HSE’s Prof Brendan Drumm have the Homer Simpson defence: “It’s not my fault. I didn’t do it. Nobody saw me.”

Where does the buck stop? Why are no heads rolling as a result of this scandal? Why no tribunals into the massive cost over-runs on PPARS, motorways, e-voting machines, etc?

It is my father’s generation who built up the prosperity which the Government has squandered. It seems the more money ministers squander, the higher the promotion.

The Government makes great play on elder abuse, but surely it is the greatest abuser of all.

The old, the sick and the disabled are treated with the utmost contempt, as are those of us who keep our loved ones at home.

Without carers, the health system would collapse. Please don’t patronise me by saying the system will improve, that the aspirational “centres of excellence” will change things. Until they replace the 5,000 hospital beds closed down in the “bad old days”, the situation will not improve.

Please respect my experience in caring and 20 years of dealing with faceless bureaucracy. I am very angry writing this letter, but I have reason to be and I am entitled to be.

Pat Kelly

Marian Park

Church Road

Blackrock

Cork