Ms Anna-Karin Ulpe:

On the topic of accessibility, it is assumed that people can drive or that they have somebody to drive them to appointments because, very often, public transport is totally inadequate. I am in a better position that other people because I live in Dublin. During most of my illness, I have not been able to use public transport because I cannot not sit upright for too long. During my journey to finding my final and good consultant, I saw ten health professionals. As I could not sit for too long in waiting rooms, I brought my yoga mat with me to lie on so that I would not faint before I was seen. When I rolled it out on the floor, I was told that for health and safety reasons I was not allowed to lie down. Nobody ever thinks that people might be so sick they need to lie down in a waiting room if waiting for an hour. This is the first hurdle that must be overcome. It would be so easy to provide a space where people can lie down.

The person who cannot drive or access public transport should be able to access health care through home visits otherwise they are just being left to rot. It is important services are provided close to the person in the community. To get my Covid jab, I had to use public transport and even though it was only a short ten-minute journey it took so much out of me in terms of energy that I was in bed a for week afterwards and could only struggle to get to the toilet. There was no accommodation to sort this out in any other way. That is my note on accessibility.