A busy day advocating for people with a Spinal Cord Injury

Tuesday, 29th November 2022, was a busy day advocating for people with a Spinal Cord Injury. Head of Services, Bairbre O’Sullivan represented SII at a workshop hosted by Ombudsman Ger Deering on Public Services and People with Disabilities.   Access, services and funding continues to be a challenge for those living with disabilities in Ireland and these common themes were voiced by the different disability organisations taking part.

Following that both Bairbre and CEO Fiona Bolger attended the Neurological Alliance of Ireland launch of its ‘Patient Deserve Better’ campaign for a community neuro rehabilitation team in CHO6. Every CHO region in Ireland was promised a rehabilitation team and only 2 have been delivered so far. This means that only 15% of people in the country who require rehabilitation in the community are receiving it. Spinal Injuries Ireland as a member organisation fully supports this campaign and we ask that our service users show their support on https://www.patientsdeservebetter.ie/

Later in the day Fiona attended the Disability Federation of Ireland Strategic General Meeting on the cost of disability. Heather Humphries TD, Minister for Social Protection and for Rural and Community Development joined the meeting. Fiona took the opportunity to ask the Minister if any cross departmental work was ongoing in securing medical cards for people with a SCI. The Minister responded that this is being addressed as part of Minister Anne Rabbitte’s work on the Cost of Disability and she also stated that she herself sees first hand in her own constituency the impact it has on families when people are above the threshold for a medical card.

Plenty of work for SII to do in 2023 and we look forward to seeking the assistance of our service users in driving change.