Minister asks for urgent response to Claire’s plight
MINISTER Paul Kehoe has asked Health Minister Simon Harris and Tony O’Brien, the Director General of the HSE, to respond urgently to the plight of a Wexford woman who was removed from the transplant list because she was managing to survive with just one lung.
‘I am truly sorry to hear about the issues you are having,’ Minister Kehoe told 29-year-old mum-of-two Claire Malone after she wrote to all the TDs in the county ‘regarding my situation’.
Two years ago, Claire had a successful operation to remove one of her lungs, but she says she is a victim of the system after being taken from the transplant list because her health has improved.
Claire, who is living in Killurin, fears that she will die and her children will be left orphans unless she receives a lung transplant.
‘I find myself lying awake, losing hours of sleep because of the constant anxiety about what will happen if something happens to me,’ she told this newspaper.
‘I don’t want to have to keep fighting a system to stay alive. When my disease had me bedbound I was considered for a transplant. After my lung removal I now survive on one lung. My breathing drastically improved, after which I was removed from the tranpslant list.’
Claire still spend months in hospital every year because of the unpredictable nature of her illness.
‘My heart has (been) moved to the wrong side of my chest to fill the void and I require a prosthetic gel bag to fix this, to reposition everything.. my physical strength is halved.
Instead of just giving me a chance to be considered for transplant I am allowed to progress with the disease,’ said Claire, who has two children, Fionn, aged 10, and Cormac, nine.