Dr. Niall Pender:

It absolutely does because we have been working with the people we are working with for quite some time. They have serious injuries, difficulties and challenges. We cannot let them go and do not want to let them go into nothing. At the moment we hope to try to link in with the voluntary organisations such as Acquired Brain Injury, ABI, Ireland, Headway Ireland and those organisations to try to get support locally. They are hugely under-resourced and have enormous waiting lists as well. Even within the hospital service a lot of people do not even make it. They are discharged and are out in the community and struggling. We might pick them up in a six-month follow-up clinic or in a years' time and they have been trying to manage on their own as best they can. They have perhaps gone back to work, it has fallen apart and they have been let go or they have not gone back to work at all. Maybe they have family members who have had to give up work to try to care for them. There is a whole socioeconomic structure. A brain injury is often known as a family affair. It has a knock-on effect on huge numbers of people. The hospitals, the acute services, are doing their best to hold on to people and try to provide some supports, and while people are coming back to outpatient clinics, those outpatient are overwhelmed. We have seen it now with Covid-19 clinics coming in.