Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is Daffodil Day. My beautiful daughter, at the age of 19, found a mouth ulcer under her tongue that simply would not go away. Being young, getting her to go to the doctor was quite a problem, but eventually she went. Long story short, she had a diagnosis of cancer of the tongue. I remember the day we brought her to theatre. I remember her consultant telling us to speak to her for the few days she would be at home before the surgery because she may never speak again, and that she may never eat again. We brought her in and I remember bringing her to theatre at 8 a.m. We were told to ring at midday. We rang at midday and we were told to ring back at 6 p.m. We rang at 6 p.m. and they said ring back at 9 p.m. At 9 p.m., we had had enough, as there was still no news, so we decided to go in. At 3 a.m. in the morning, she was wheeled out of theatre. To lose half your tongue at 19 is horrendous. Cancer never ever forgets that it had hold of you.

My beautiful daughter has survived, thank God. She has half a tongue and talks more than I do, which Members can appreciate is an awful lot of talk. However, she suffers chronic health issues and I have two points to raise on this. The first is the inability of our health system to provide a medical card continuously to somebody who is a survivor of cancer. My daughter used to have to fight every year to get her medical card. She now has it. She had horrendous health issues. Every time she has to go to a hospital, she has to go into accident and emergency and sit there with people who are drunk and people who are drug addicts. The same applies to people with other sorts of illnesses.

The other point is one or two of her supervisors have asked her how many times she thinks she will be out sick next year. How bloody heartless is that? When we hear of cancer, always remember it is the entire family who suffer and the individual who survives is left with chronic issues for the rest of their life, so let us look after Daffodil Day.