FOUR mothers explained to The Southern Star why they are part of a group of parents who have instructed a solicitor to write to CoAction and the Health Service Executive (HSE) over the lack of respite care.
Bantry-based solicitor Brian Harrington issued a letter on September 18 claiming that CoAction and the HSE continuously failed to provide adequate and appropriate respite care.
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The four mothers, who offer differing ‘day in the life’ accounts of the ongoing care and support needs of their adult children, said they felt compelled to take this course of action because other parents could be close to carer’s burnout.
One mother, Noreen O’Shea (54), spoke about how fantastic the staff employed by CoAction are on a professional and compassionate level. She described how together with her husband Vincent the staff “co-parent” their daughter Farrah (21).
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Noreen said the board of directors of CoAction are incredibly hard-working, and she praised its new CEO for having achieved a great deal, including boosting much-needed staffing levels.
Noreen said parents have no wish to “start a fight” with CoAction or the HSE. She said they want the respite purse strings for service users loosened up in Bantry.
They would also like to know if there are plans to renovate a property, known as Bayview at Seskin, which could be used to provide respite services, and whether CoAction is to proceed with its plans to purchase housing specifically for respite care.
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In 2022, parents of service users protested over the proposed change of use of CoAction’s Child and Family Centre in Bantry. The centre was reconfigured to provide residential centre for full-time service users who needed to move out of Bayview because it wasn’t up to code.
At the time, locals and members of the business community, who helped to raise €1.3m for the purpose-built child and family centre, campaigned unsuccessfully to have it retained.
Parents, today, say they are being promised additional respite places, but claim there is no evidence of that on the ground despite the fact that there are funds available.
CoAction and the HSE have both issued statements saying respite is available, but the parents are at pains to point out that a Bantry service user could be sent to Skibbereen, Castletownbere or Garretstown, which, to their mind, is unfair on people with similar needs in these localities.
Joan’s son Shane (41). The mothers are speaking out to highlight the lack of respite as they care for their adult children.Amongst the group at the recent meeting were Noreen, together with Esther O’Mahony (64), mother of Brian (27) from Kealkil, Kathy Hourihane (55), mother of Hannah (22) also from Kealkil, and Joan Carroll (67), mother her son Shane (41).
Each of them equated the constant care that they and their spouses provide with a kind of relentless fatigue. Not one of them could explain why the likes of Esther, who says she can’t take her eyes off Brian for two minutes, hasn’t had respite care for ten years.
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Describing her daily routine Joan Carroll said her son Shane is wheelchair-bound and tube-fed. “I get up at 8am and get myself ready for Shane. With some home help at 9.15 Shane is up washed and dressed and in his wheelchair.
“Then we have to flush the tube through which he is fed, do his teeth, and then his medication has to go through the tube. He goes by bus to the Lamh sa Lamh service at CoAction at 11am.
“That’s my time to do some housework. If I have to go to town I am conscious that I have to be back again by 4pm. I like to have everything ready for when he comes in in the evening because everything has to be prepared, liquidised.
“The home help comes at 6.30pm and we get him up and into his pyjamas; then we do his medication again. At 10.30pm he might watch TV or listen to some music on his headphones,
“But if he were here, at this conversation, he would keep on screaming wanting me to talk to him: the only way to have a conversation with someone else is to put on his earphones and let him listen to music.”
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Joan, who hasn’t had respite since 2019, said: “You miss out on a lot of things: for example, you can’t go visiting. You miss out on things like family confirmations and communions – anything that takes a day means I can’t go because I have to be back here by a certain time.
“When I did have respite, I had at least one or two days to myself every now and then. I might not have done anything. Maybe I’d have sat down to read a book, but the point is that I would be rested and able by the time Shane came back to me.”
