Healthcare workers urged to take part in Cork disability protest
Founder of Families Unite for Services and Support, Rachel Marti,n said a lot of parents have been burnt out this summer. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos
Parents of children with disabilities are “struggling to hang on” due to a dire lack of services which has prompted a protest in Cork today .
Healthcare workers have been called on by parents to “end your silence, stand with us, stand for yourselves and stand with the children”.
All allies of children with disabilities have been called to take part in the protest, which is to begin at 2pm at the Grand Parade in Cork City.
Cork was chosen for the protest — the fourth organised by the group Families Unite for Services and Support (FUSS) this year — because Cork has some of the poorest disability support services for children in Ireland.
An impassioned plea was made to healthcare workers by Jamie Williams, a neurodivergent mother and carer to an autistic child with complex needs.
She called on healthcare workers who struggle in a broken system every day to try to help children, to join with parents to demand a functional disability service.
“You see or speak to children and families every day who are absolutely devastated at having been let down by a failing system.
“You sit through the tears of parents at their wits end with no support, the fury of families who have had enough of being let down, and the utter bafflement of carers and parents new to the system who are finding out for the first time that their child will be placed at the bottom of an overflowing barrel,” Ms Williams said in an Instagram post.
“You sit through this on repeat daily. Somehow, you still manage to come into work every day to support these families, for not very much pay, because most of you got into your chosen profession to help people.”
Parents' anger at the HSE for lack of services was not directed at healthcare workers, Ms Williams said.
“We see you struggling in daily life for not being paid what you deserve for the work you do for vulnerable children. We see you silently navigating a system within which there is no accountability, with upper management perpetually investigating themselves and finding no fault in an obviously flawed system.
“We need you to know that we are fighting for you as much as we are fighting for our children, because in a system falling apart around us, our children only have you.
“We will fight for better pay, for accountability when you raise complaints and concerns, for better working conditions, for more funding to the relevant departments because how can you help our children if you are not taken care of first?
“The struggle can be overwhelming. We see you and we need you with us.
"We can fix this if we work together. Please, we ask you to end your silence, stand with us, stand for yourselves and stand with the children.”
Despite repeat meetings with government ministers and promises for much-needed supports for their vulnerable children, Rachel Martin, who founded FUSS, said that nothing has changed.
Therapists, removed from schools under the HSE’s Progressing Disability Services programme, were to be reinstated for September, but this has not yet happened and schools will open in the coming weeks.
Although Minister of State for Disabilities, Anne Rabbitte seems committed to improving services for children, she appears to be being blocked by other officials and a general lack of political will, Ms Martin said.
Ms Rabbitte has pushed to move from the Department of Health to the Department of Children and Equality, a move which had previously been agreed by government but that has not yet happened.
The Department of Children and Equality said that work to implement the transfer of functions is ongoing, and it is not currently possible to provide a date.
The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said it is engaging with the relevant Departments in relation to the overall governance and financial arrangements for this transfer of functions.
Although recruitment and retention of staff have been at crisis levels in the HSE for many months, nothing appears to be changing, Ms Martin said.
“There seems to be no accountability as to why they’re not retaining staff, why they’re unable to recruit staff, that’s an issue we’re coming up against in every county.
“A lot of parents are burned out this summer. They’re struggling to hang on. They’re struggling to hang on financially, they’re crippled with the prices of private therapies. I know with my own son — he’s eight and a half — and what I paid for occupational therapies for him has doubled.
“A lot of parents feel their children are invisible. They’re disappearing from society and people don’t care.
“When it comes to a shortage of school places, it often comes across that their children are not worthy of education — of a suitable school place.
“They might have to travel 40k to find a school place. There is no equity there."
Provision of equipment is also a major problem, with reports of two-year waits for vital equipment like wheelchairs in Cork — by which time the child has already outgrown it.
But that same wheelchair or bath support can be sourced from the same supplier within weeks if parents can pay privately.
"Minister Roderick O’Gorman and Minister Anne Rabbitte have stated that it’s not a money issue. If it’s not funding, why are they waiting two years for a wheelchair that I can get myself in four weeks if I have the money for it? It’s systemic failures.”
