1,000 signatures reached
To: Stephen Donnelly Minister of Health
Tyler's Wish to Allow Paediatric Palliative Care to Children under 16 years in the South East.
We want palliative care to be available to young people in the south east of Ireland.
Why is this important?
This is important because young people matter, they are young and deserve to have the pallative care they need in their own home for their final moments.
Please read below of a recent story which has happened in the south east of Ireland.*
A Patient who was diagnosed with lymphoma at the age of 15 is currently 16 and was at home with the lack of support from pallative care.
The care that is currrently in place deals with adults only and not with children. This is the case only in the South East Region and not the rest of the country.
At the moment clinical director for the national clinical programme for palliative care Brian Creedon covers adult palliative care in the area only.
The patient was promised palliative care from Our Lady's Children's Hospital Crumlin since last May. Consultants in Crumlin were in full knowledge of the lack of services in place, but assumed it is going to be in place once needed. These services were again promised on 14th of August, which supposed to include a night nurse, when in fact they had nothing in place. The family were never made aware of any of this.
Family were sent home from the hospital Tuesday the 27th of August with absolutely no help in place nor any medication if any seizures were to occur. The family had to look for help from family friends and work colleagues, who have no training in the field. Crumlin hospital didn't get in touch with patients family, in fact the family needed to contact Crumlin themselves.
Local doctors and nurses cannot provide any help, as they are not authorised by HSE to do so.
This is currently affecting the South East region.
*The patient has since passed away.