Grandfather offers to give up dialysis so non-verbal grandson can get speech therapy

A grandfather on dialysis three times a week offered a “trade-off” of ceasing his treatment to save the State money so his three-year-old non-verbal grandson could get speech therapy, the Dáil has been told.

Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the 52-year-old had emailed him and Tánaiste Simon Harris. “It absolutely stopped me in my tracks,” Doherty said.

Quoting the email, he said the grandfather wrote: “My heart breaks for him as he cannot talk and gets so frustrated. My daughter has him on a waiting list to be seen. I feel he’s been left behind.”

Offering to cease his treatment, he said: “I know what my outcome will be, but I would give anything to hear his little voice.

“Please, Simon, treat this email seriously, as I’m 100 per cent certain of my choices. I’m still young at 52, but at peace with my decision.”

Doherty said he had spoken to the man and told him to continue his treatment. “But he’s desperate,” Doherty said. “His love for his grandson is unmistakable, and his heart is broken.

“Thinking that by saving the State a few pounds his young grandson would get treatment – but that’s the desperation that families are in.”

The Donegal TD said it was part of a wider failure in community care “which gets far less attention than hospital waiting lists”.

HSE figures showed 6,170 children waiting to begin their initial speech and language therapy at the end of July, he said.

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In the Clare and Limerick service area, 305 were waiting on speech and language, and the longest wait for assessment in Co Clare was 91 weeks, while it was 44 weeks in Donegal, he added.

“What he needs is [a] direct, compassionate response, and his grandson needs the help,” Doherty told the Dáil.

Urging the Tánaiste to directly intervene, he said: “All I could hear from every syllable that he uttered was love, was desperation, and care for his grandchild.”

Harris said he was “sorry to hear in the first instance of the clear stress and anxiety that that man is feeling”.

He was unaware of the email but said he would check with officials, raise the case with Ministers and pass the information on to the HSE.

“It should never be – and indeed it never is – a choice between that man receiving the treatment that he so desperately requires, and indeed wanting and expecting his young grandchild to also receive the speech and language therapy that they so badly need and require as well.”

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He said the Government recognises primary care and therapy waiting lists “are still too long”, and that a number of initiatives are being taken.

He said Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill increased funding last year for physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy to reduce the numbers on the waiting list.

He said the Government is also committed to doubling the number of college places for speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dietitians, psychologists and social workers, providing up to 461 additional student places by 2028.

“I know for the three-year-old child today, that’s not the answer,” Harris said.

“But it is the answer for building up the capacity of the system to make sure we don’t find ourselves in a situation where any grandparent is worrying will their child get access to the treatment that they so very much require.”