‘We have to give DIY physio to our girl’
A FATHER involved in the Rescue 116 search operation has to return home every evening to provide DIY physiotherapy – which he learned from a video – for his seven-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy. He does it because the HSE has not provided cover for a physio who is on maternity leave.
Coast Guard member David McNamara and his wife Natasha took their daughter Molly to the US three years ago so she could have specialist surgery to allow her greater mobility. They also took her to Scotland to see a therapist, as she has had no HSE physio since last September.
Now the McNamaras, from Dooagh, Achill Sound in Co. Mayo, say they have been told that if they continue to get therapies outside the HSE, all assistance from the State health service will cease.
The family say they have faced resistance from the HSE since they asked a paediatrician about the US surgery after hearing about it on the radio .
Mrs McNamara said she was told that she ‘couldn’t have heard what I thought I had, as no such surgery existed’.
She added: ‘I decided not to take her at her word and thankfully, when I checked it out, I discovered I was right and we got moving on getting the job done.’
The US doctors who performed the operation advised that Molly would need physio five days a week, yet when the family arrived home it was six weeks before a HSE physio saw them. Her parents are now using videos of exercises to provide physio for their daughter as she has not seen a HSE physiotherapist since last September, when Molly’s physio left on maternity leave .
Mrs McNamara said: ‘David trained with some of the crew on 116 and the last few weeks have been particularly traumatic. He’s been out all day on the search operation and then has to come home and help me do what is essentially DIY physio on Molly.’
‘It’s a constant battle to get anything done by the HSE, and now this latest fiasco whereby a physio on maternity leave is not replaced has left us close to breaking point.’ The HSE did not reply to requests for comment.