I am not a lawyer. But there is a law that requires the governments of EU member states to pay for service abroad in another EU member state if a particular health service is required but is not available in the home country.
When we were panicking and frightened by the thought that Pádraig would be ‘kept’ – and there is no other word for it – on a high-dependency ward of an acute hospital, and started to talk to specialists in England and in Germany, we also talked to the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) consultant responsible for Pádraig. That consultant told us that while the HSE have an obligation to offer treatment abroad, she would not waste her time, as she was too busy with other important things, filling out HSE applications that would not materialize.
If I was a lawyer, I would take the Government and the HSE to court for denying essential health care to its citizens.
Some of you might have seen the front page news of one of Ireland’s national tabloids, the Irish Daily Mail, with an extra inside page, AND an editorial. All this follows Pat’s interview on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta yesterday, and their subsequent press release. Apparently, Enda Kenny, our Prime Minister and Taoiseach, is preparing an answer to the letter we sent him last week. – It’s never too late. I put up the Irish Daily Mail articles on http://www.caringforpadraig.org if you want to check them out.
This is Pádraig in studio with Éadaoin Nic Giolla Bhríghde in Sept 2011. Cormac Ó hEadhra is presenter.
Ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere. But then, they can also block the sun. – Over the past days, I have been thinking (!) about what it might feel to be in a bed for many months, not being able to taste or to smell. I talked to a nurse who said that part of their education was to become the patient for a short while. She said that even being moved, say from the Thekla into the bed, was an incredible experience. She said the experience of not knowing and not seeing what was going on was terrifying. Lowering the back with the head into a horizontal position felt like as if one was just about to fall off a cliff.
For the first time ever, we saw Pádraig’s heartbeat go down to 57 beats a minute, something we had never seen before. We were about to call a nurse when we realized that 57 is kind of a normal beat when one is resting, as Pádraig was. He had two visitors with him today, old friends from Dublin, but was very relaxed and a bit sleepy today. That is good during the weekend that he is able to gather his strength for Monday.
The article in the Irish Daily Mail today talked about Pádraig as a ‘refugee’. In a way, he has been very lucky and privileged that he was able to avail of the German health service when the Irish system failed him – one might think. In reality, the Germans are now picking up a huge bill, to cover for the Irish system that is failing some of its best and most vulnerable citizens.
I’ll leave it here for tonight.
Reinhard
Hospi-Tales 
Very impressed by the impact of your letter and Pat´s interview! We, in Spain, are losing a lot of health facilities due to the political situation. They built airports with no plains, they built magnificent new hospital with lack of personal, they built great museums, and spent lots of money on them and most of this huge fantoms remain unused whilst the budged for health has been cut down and therefore cut facilities
.
I agree, it’s a question of rights, and priorities, Ana. There is money. It’s just spent badly.
Sounds all too familiar Ana: The Mockracy turns out the same in most places that “erred” economically!
The thing is that this is still being portrayed as an economic ‘error’, Seosamh, when it is really a crisis of democracy, at least in my mind. It’s not just that this happened – but they are getting away with it!