When Brian Hennessy's wife tells friends from abroad the lengths her husband has to go for life-saving medical treatment each week she says they are dumbfounded. "They simply cannot believe that in the Ireland of today something like this is still going on," says Katherine of the seven-hour round trip her husband must make for kidney dialysis three times a week.
For six years Brian (51), whose two kidneys have failed, has been receiving this treatment. He travels from his home in Ferbane, Co Offaly, to Merlin Park Hospital in Galway. He gets up at 6.45 a.m. and is driven in a health board car to Galway where he arrives at 8 a.m.. Dialysis takes four hours and he returns home at around 2 p.m.
It is an exceptionally tough trip for someone so ill but as Brian points out it is a marked improvement on the journey he made for two-and-a-half years when he was receiving treatment in Dublin. A number of kidney patients in the Midlands still make that arduous trip.
"Then I used to have to get up at 4.45 a.m. and might not get home until 4 p.m.. One of the worst things was that we used to arrive an hour early at the Meath Hospital because two of the other patients were being brought on to Beaumont. I was very lucky to get the transfer to Galway."
At the time of this interview Brian has just returned from Galway. He is visibly exhausted. His arms, where the needles have been sticking for four hours, are sore and difficult to move.
He would like a dialysis unit to be set up in the Midlands Health Board area, preferably in Tullamore General Hospital which is nearest to him. It would cost £200,000 to set up such a unit, £300,000 a year to run and it would bring relief not only to Brian but up to 15 other people in similar circumstances in the region. Katherine finds it incredible that this has not already been provided.
"It is very hard when you have to go around with a begging bowl, like the Irish Kidney Association does at church gates, to fund treatment. It is just letting the Government off the hook. All his life Brian paid taxes. I work as a teacher and I pay taxes. We never looked for anything from the Government while we were able. Now that we need something, we are not getting it. We are certainly not aware of the economic boom here."
