Wedding day tragedy and gratitude

THREE months ago my father suffered heart failure on the morning of my wedding in a remote spot in west Cork, an hour before we were due to walk up the aisle together.

As his pulse was intermittent, my brothers continued to carry out cardiac pulmonary resuscitation until the excellent cardiac resuscitation and ambulance services team arrived.

The ambulance team maintained his pulse by stopping three times to resuscitate him on the 20-minute journey to the local Bantry hospital.

My father survived a further four days thanks to the efforts of the Bantry hospital team, allowing us as a family to come to terms with the horror which had occurred and to say our final goodbye to a wonderful man.

If we had no alternative but to travel to the ‘centre of excellence’ in Cork, there is little doubt we would be going from a wedding setting straight to a morgue, as Cork is a two-hour drive across bad country roads.

The level of care and attention given by Bantry hospital was beyond words and meant everything to my family.

It is a wonderful hospital that seems to be very well managed from the top down.

I have deep concerns after reading about the planned centralisation of critical services and downgrading of local hospitals.

I saw over four long days and nights how important the services of a local hospital are to the locality with a continuous flow of people at all hours with various emergencies (Bantry hospital serves a population of more than 60,000 people).

As citizens there is a massive cost, beyond what is measured in financial terms, in the decisions that are made and in how we provide hospital care.

The top priority of any government should the care of its people. The availability of local services and the standards of care and support provided in many of these locations are a critical element in maintaining a fabric of society that we can ascribe value to and treasure.

At the end of the day I will always have the opportunity to plan another wedding day, but we had just one opportunity to say goodbye to my father thanks to Bantry hospital.

My family and I would like to thank to everyone there.

Carol Shanahan

Dun Laoghaire

Co Dublin