You need to call for EFFECTIVE STROKE REHAB, not just more funding for all the existing failures. If you know Barbara O'Connell you need to educate her on what is actually needed in stroke rehab, it is not more funding.
Brain injury and rehabilitation - Irish Times
Sir, – We hear every day about the
crisis in our acute health services but what about the people left to
exist after surviving a massive trauma like brain injury? We need to
fight for them too.
There
are 19,000 brain injuries acquired every year in Ireland and worldwide,
and brain injury is set to surpass other diseases as the biggest cause
of death and disability. There is hardly a family in the country that
hasn’t been touched by brain injuries caused by stroke, road traffic
accidents, falls, tumours and assault.
Right
now brain injury survivors face a lottery to access
neuro-rehabilitation services in Ireland and this is not good enough.
This country cannot continue to save a life on the one hand but rob
quality of life on the other hand by not investing in community
rehabilitation.
Our
hospitals are clogged up unnecessarily by keeping brain-injury
survivors in acute beds that don’t need to be there. Some young
survivors are forced to live indefinitely in nursing homes or community
hospitals without access to any rehabilitation to aid their recovery.
Families are pushed to breaking point because of severe under-resourcing
of neuro-rehabilitation. The reality is if you have a brain injury
outside of Dublin, there are no specialist beds for you and very little
rehabilitation in your community.
As
voters put election candidates through their paces on the doorsteps,
Acquired Brain Injury Ireland is calling on the public to demand more
funding for community rehabilitation in the next programme for
government.
This
will save time and money across the health system by improving the flow
of brain injury survivors from hospital to home, free up acute beds,
reduce stress on families as caregivers, and improve health outcomes. –
Yours, etc,
BARBARA O’CONNELL,
Chief Executive,
Acquired Brain
Injury Ireland,
Dun Laoghaire,
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