Trophy

Tonight’s the night. The streets will be empty, Deutschland will not except anything but this trophy tonight.

Pádraig will be asleep and we’ll tell him tomorrow how it all turned out. It was a real quiet day today – but we managed again (like yesterday) to lift Pádraig into his wheelchair with the help of his nurse. Tomorrow will be the first of a three-day ‘course’ in moving Pádraig out of his bed into the wheelchair (and back) which his therapists have organised for us. What we hope for is that we will be able to help with the ‘routine’ work so that the therapists can concentrate on the advanced work.

Last week, when I was in Ireland, I had a meeting with the Neurological Alliance of Ireland (NAI) and Headway. I also tried to meet up with ABI Ireland again but that did not work out this time. I presented the idea of An Saol to them, asked them whether they felt it was necessary to establish it as a facility for young people with severe brain injuries, where they could receive appropriate care and therapy – instead of being ‘kept’ in an acute hospital or a nursing home. They all enthusiastically agreed that An Saol is necessary and they all promised their enthusiastic support.

I think that even Enda Kenny, our Taoiseach (prime minister) will agree. I just double-checked the letter he sent us earlier this year. There, he said that,

“The anger, dissatisfaction and frustration that you feel are clear and understood. You are right that Pádraig should be able to receive care here in his own country, the place where his parents and friends live. But, as your experiences show, the health system that we have here at the moment is unsatisfactory; it is not able to provide health care for its patients when they need it most.

Leo Varadkar (@campaignforleo) is the new Minister of Health, since late last week. He might not yet be aware of the appalling state of neurological rehabilitation in Ireland, and especially the lack of appropriate care and therapy for young survivors of severe ABI. So, we started to day with some messages on Twitter…

If you want to help, send the new Minister of Health a message and ask him wether he is aware of Pádraig’s situation, via Twitter, email, post, telephone, whatever: @campaignforleo (Twitter), minister’s_office@health.irlgov.ie (email),44 Kildare Street, Dublin 2, Tel: 01-6041062.

The new Minister of Health has a unique opportunity to win himself a trophy so much bigger and so much brighter than any trophy FIFA has to offer. He has the unique opportunity to do something that will very fundamentally change the life of young people with ABI, that will allow them to live in dignity and with the hope of recovering as much of their abilities lost in an accident as possible.