Sir, – Ade Stack (September 2nd) captures so eloquently why there’s no place like home when it comes to caring for a child like her son Hugh. This brave mum strikes a chord when she explains how “‘we didn’t have to decide which child to hug – we could hug them all together”, a beautiful description of what it means to be at home with your sick child, as a family.
I write from the heart and with too much painful experience, when I say that families with children like Ade’s son Hugh; and my son Jack – beautiful, precious children whose time with us is all too short – crave that “normal life” outside the hospital walls. They too want the normality of having lights switched on and off at will.
Unfortunately, Hugh’s story is repeated across the country with more and more sick children and their parents stuck in hospital, wishing they could get home and (newsflash for the Department of Finance) if successful another hospital bed would be freed up and thousands, no millions, of euro would be saved every year.
When will Minister for Health James Reilly and the HSE have a light-bulb moment when it comes to caring for children with life-limiting conditions at home and acknowledge the real financial as well as medical benefits of making this happen? The man between the rock and the hard place when it comes to the health budget should be ring-fencing a national paediatric home nursing plan to get more children like Hugh home. Right thing to do. Right time. And guaranteed to save money.
Does anybody care? I do. And so should everyone – not just the Minister for Health. – Yours, etc,
JONATHAN IRWIN,
CEO,
Jack & Jill Foundation,
Naas,
Co Kildare.