A mother who has looked after her child with neurological deficits for the last 24 years has told a High Court judge how she pleaded with the HSE for a nurse to help out one night a week but was turned down.
"I have had two heart attacks in the past and I just want a nurse one night a week but they won’t give it," the woman told Mr Justice Paul Coffey on Thursday.
She was speaking as her daughter, now in her 30s, settled a High Court action for €1.3 million over her care when she had brain tumour surgery at Cork University Hospital when she was 8 years old.
The settlement is on the basis of a liability apportionment of just 10 per cent against the HSE. Mr Justice Coffey also ordered that the family not be identified.
The court heard if the case had gone to trial it would have taken ten to twelve weeks.
The woman’s counsel, Dr John O’Mahony SC instructed by solicitor Vincent Toher, told the court it was "a very complex, heartbreaking and devastating case" where the girl was found to have a very large brain tumour.
Dr O'Mahony said without the surgery the girl would only have survived six to nine months.
He said it was their case that after surgery at Cork University Hospital in 2001, the girl’s vision was turned down to the left and she was left with neurological deficits including cognitive impairment, deafness and epilepsy.
Now in her 30s, the woman cannot walk unaided and has to use a wheelchair and she requires full time care and will never be able to live independently, counsel said.
Dr O’Mahony said it was their case that while a CT scan was taken before the brain surgery, an MRI scan was not done, which "would have illuminated and given a broader picture" as to how to plan for the surgery.
The MRI scan, it was contended, would have given an indication of brain stem involvement with the tumour and could have influenced the surgical approach.
All of the claims in the proceedings were denied. The woman’s mother told the judge her 8-year-old daughter "was skipping and dancing on the ward" before the surgery, but afterwards she was "like a rag doll."
She said she and her husband had looked after their daughter for last 24 years "and done everything for her and even bought equipment."
"I have had two heart attacks. I have pleaded with the HSE for a nurse one night a week and they won’t give it. My daughter’s wheelchair is five years old; my daughter who suffers from seizures is a prisoner in her own home," she told the judge.
She said the HSE did give the family 15 hours a week and the Irish Wheelchair Association allotted seven hours a week but her daughter needs full-time care and she and her husband have to provide it.
After hearing the mother, the judge said that she and her husband were to be saluted for their efforts over the last 24 years which he was were "truly heroic."
Approving the settlement the judge said there were "formidable difficulties" in the case and in the circumstances the offer was adequate.
