Baby Sarah loses her therapist and her smile

OUR daughter Sarah was born on the September 21 last year in Cork University Hospital. Within three days she was transferred to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin.

She has been in the excellent care of the nurses and doctors there since then. With heart problems which are life-threatening and having recently undergone a tractotomy, she has been in intensive care for five-and-a-half months.

Recently, though, she was transferred to a transitional care unit (TCU) where the ultimate aim is to bring Sarah home. In the TCU, Sarah and the other children receive daily physiotherapy and play therapy to improve muscle tone and to encourage them to use their hands and start to do normal baby activities. You should she see the smile on Sarah’s face when the play therapist appears at the door.

Sarah loves seeing her as she knows she’s going to have fun and, importantly for a child who has been used to having needles inserted in her by nurses and doctors, that not everyone is going to hurt her. She knows you can have fun with people as well.

With the help of the play therapist and the physiotherapist , Sarah is now starting to do many of the normal baby activities. She has improved in leaps and bounds in the past few weeks – so we were shocked to hear last week that the play therapist’s contract is not been renewed in July.

Of course this is not the responsibility of the hospital CEO. He gets a budget from the HSE. It’s not the HSE’a responsibility either, of course – it gets its money from Health Minister Mary Harney. And it is not her responsibility either as she only allocates money to the HSE.

Everyone blames someone else while Sarah suffers like other children in similar circumstances. So much for Ms Harney’s promise that frontline services would not be affected. Why should we be surprised? This is the minster who, along with Prof Brendan Drumm, has presided over the cancer misdiagnosis debacle and didn’t have the decency to offer to resign. Prof Drumm even picked up his bonus for a job well done.

Ms Harney is reported not to be contesting the next election. As far as I know, Prof Drumm is untouchable in spite of the constant stream of scandals he has presided over in the health service. I hope God can be more forgiving of them than I can.

Diarmuid Dorney

Glenwood Dale

Carrigaline

Co Cork