Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, to the House for this debate. I wish to raise the case of an individual with locked-in syndrome who would like to be moved from hospital so as to be cared for in the family home. This is a particularly sad case on which I have been working for the past year. The man in question has been an inpatient in hospital for over a year and his family is very worried about his mental state and quality of life if he remains in hospital for much longer. He is a young man in his 30s who, although ventilator dependent, remains very aware of what is happening around him.

I have been liaising with the family and HSE representatives on many levels on this case for some time. Understandably, the family wants to see the man brought home to be cared for. They have the doctors' support in the hospital as there is nothing more that can be done for the man there.

I have raised the matter on behalf of the man and his family in many formats, including parliamentary questions, e-mails and letters, and I am now doing so by way of Adjournment debate. I have been informed the reason the individual will not be moved from hospital to the family home is the high level of funding required to deal with his complex care needs. I understand there are many complex care needs involved but I do not believe a person should have to remain in hospital for the foreseeable future owing to the lack of approval for funding for a home care package. The spending of additional days, months and years in hospital due to a lack of funding is unacceptable. The man deserves and wants the opportunity to live in his own home and to be surrounded by his loved ones.

It is heartbreaking to see what the man's family must endure. They travel up to Dublin every day to be with him and then travel home. Lately, he wrote a very emotional letter pleading for people to take him home. He described the high point of his day as his being moved after waiting for somebody to come to turn him around. I do not believe we can imagine how difficult and heartbreaking it must be to be literally locked inside one's own body, unable to speak and move and having to wait for somebody to come to roll one over.

I fear for the man's physical and mental state if he is to remain in hospital for much longer. I urge the Minister of State to act on this important matter because everyone deserves the opportunity to have a life of a decent quality, no matter what his disability, illness or diagnosis.