Taoiseach Micheál Martin has told the HSE that there should be no delays in providing equipment to the families of children with disabilities amid reports of people waiting months and sometimes years for aids like wheelchairs, leg braces and bath supports.
Mr Martin said he told the HSE “the system needs to change in terms of more rapid delivery of aids” after a campaign by Cork-based Families Unite for Services and Support (FUSS) highlighted the struggles to him.
Rachel Martin of FUSS was one of 50 people who protested outside Cork City Hall last week for better services for children with disabilities, and handed Mr Martin a letter detailing some of the challenges facing more than 30 families from Mr Martin’s own Cork South Central constituency.
Among the cases FUSS highlighted in the letter was the case of a 20-month-old girl who has a rare neurological condition and is waiting for months on a buggy, stander and sleeping aid and is also waiting on speech and language therapy.
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Another child has been waiting six months for a bath support, while another child has been waiting nine months for leg braces. Another child has been waiting two years for a new wheelchair and is forced to use a wheelchair that she had clearly outgrown, said Ms Martin.
Other children have been waiting three and four years for both occupational therapy and speech and language therapy while a little boy with intellectual disability issues is now three years old and waiting assessment even though he is engaging in serious escalating incidents of self-harm.
Mr Martin said he had convened a meeting two weeks ago between the HSE and the Department of Education to examine what was required in terms of establishing schools for children with special needs and some progress had been made.
“On the education front, we did start a new school in Carrigaline last year – we have acquired land in Glanmire in respect of a new special school and further educational development – there will be further investments in SNAs [special needs assistants],” he said.
“Then in terms of the healthcare settings, we want the special schools to be ring-fenced in respect of the therapies – the therapies would be restored to special school over time because under progressing disability, it is administered by the HSE,” he said.
Mr Martin also said the Government would provide funding to enable the HSE to recruit specialist occupational therapists and speech and language therapists, as well as personnel to carry out assessment on the needs of children with autism and other intellectual disabilities.
Handing Mr Martin the letter of complaint, Ms Martin said: “We call on you as our Taoiseach, our local representative, a citizen of this country and our neighbour, to act on the collapse of children’s disability services with the urgency it so desperately requires.
“We watch as Ministers ask for access to the services they are supposed to have control of and see how little power they have when they are stonewalled with fake data or just denied access altogether.
“Meanwhile our children lose a little bit more every day, a little bit more mobility, a few more skills and a hell of a lot more dignity. Because there is no two ways about it, it’s degrading having to make our personal struggles public like this again and again. Our children deserve dignity and privacy.”
