A teenage boy has been hospitalised for nearly three months at a cost of up to €100,000 to the State because of delays in securing a wheelchair, his mother has claimed.
Liam Lynch from Mallow, Co Cork, is in Cork University Hospital (CUH) with chronic bedsores because he grew out of his wheelchair.
In an interview with the Today with Sean O’Rourke show, on RTÉ Radio 1, his mother, Grainne, said Liam has waited so long for a wheelchair that he now suffers from stage-four pressure sores. The boy has been hospitalised since January.
Mrs Lynch said: “He is like any teenager. He goes to discos. He is involved in power soccer. He should be studying for his Junior Cert. The wheelchair is instead of his legs. but he does everything else the same as everyone else does.”
She said problems began when her son needed a new wheelchair. “His chair is four years old. A chair would usually last around three years. Last June we met with [the] occupational therapist, and she had started the paperwork for Liam to get a new chair.
“So all the quotes were in place. Then it went to the team [who prioritise such applications]. He wasn’t prioritised at that point.
“He then developed a small pressure sore on his left bum. That was being treated at home. It wasn’t working. He developed a temperature, and he was hospitalised on the 19th of January,” Mrs Lynch said, adding her son has been unable to get out of bed since he was hospitalised.
“I can’t fault the treatment he is getting in the CUH. But the pressure sore isn’t healing so we are now on the waiting list to go to Crumlin for an operation to do a skin graft or in a very dire situation amputate his leg and use the skin from his leg to cover the wound,” she said.
Yesterday doctors at CUH told Mrs Lynch and her husband, David, that Liam has developed a hospital bug that requires him to be in isolation.
“This could hamper his transfer to Crumlin and delay it again. We are in limbo,” she said.
“Arising out of the pressure sore he requires a specially moulded seat so that for happen he needs to be able to sit out in an apparatus where they suck the air out of it. They then mould it to his posture. Because of the sore he can’t perform the procedure.”
Mrs Lynch added:“It has cost over €100,000 for him to be in hospital. The chair was too small for him. He grew out of the chair. He had nowhere to go so he was sitting on a portion of the seat that wasn’t padded. That’s why he got the bed sores.”
Liam has required a wheelchair since the age of seven when he was diagnosed with a tumour in his spine and scoliosis. His new wheelchair was sanctioned on January 29th.
In a statement to RTÉ the HSE said: “We regret that there can be a waiting period for equipment and this is due to the fact that demands on the budget and the available budget are very high.”