HSE accused of ‘playing Russian roulette’ with severely disabled children in Dublin school – InTallaght

The HSE is playing Russian roulette with the lives of dozens of severely disabled children by running a school with no therapists on-site, the father of one of the children has claimed.

Carmonas Special School in Glenageary, South Dublin, which caters for pupils between the ages of four and 16 with severe intellectual disabilities, welcomed their pupils back in late August.

However, the team of therapists which had always been on site and ready to deal with any life-threatening incidents since 2002 have been moved out of the school, the father claims.

The HSEs decision to move the much-needed clinicians flew in the face of direct promises made to the concerned parents by Minister for Disabilities Anne Rabbitte.

Minister Rabbitte met with parents in person at Carmona school in June and confirmed that the HSE had been instructed not to remove therapists from special schools, said Andrew Murnaghan, the official parents representative at Carmona School.

Yet, the HSE have continued to ignore this direction and took steps to remove these vital supports from the school.

Mr Murnaghan, whose daughter attends the school, said the HSEs actions were disgraceful.

He said: Their indifference to the plight of the children and these are the most compromised children you will ever meet is disgraceful. It is reprehensible.

Everyday there isnt a physiotherapist based on-site at the school the HSE are playing Russian roulette with those children and their lives.

Since 2002, there has been a team of speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists based on site at the school.

Many of the children are wheelchair-bound and are completely unable to speak. The therapists help them to communicate through sign language, advise on modified diets because the children can choke easily, and even drain mucus from their lungs because they are unable to cough.

As a result of the change, Mr Murnaghan said: My daughter has had no speech and language therapy. So that is horrific because they help her to communicate.

That causes extreme frustration for the kids and can cause them to have self-harming behaviours as well because they are not being helped to communicate.

Not only do the therapists do all this, Mr Murnaghan said there have been three incidents where they gave life-saving CPR to a child in the crucial time in between the child falling ill and the ambulance arriving.

The stressed-out parents found out about the decision to move the therapists through a letter sent on the last day of term.

Andrew said: They sent a letter on the last day of the school term to the parents. These are parents who are up the walls having nervous breakdowns looking after their kids.

Despite Andrew receiving confirmation from Minister Rabbitte that the clinicians would not be moved at a meeting in June, they came back to the school and found they had split.

He said: Unbeknownst to us, they were already moving files and following instructions from the HSE to move off site so we came back to school in September and there was nobody there.

Minister Anne Rabbitte said in a statement that the Childrens Disability Network Teams are in attendance on site at Carmona.

She said: I am informed by the HSE that since the reconfiguration into Childrens Disability Network Teams (CDNTs) on the 13th September last, the CDNTs are in attendance on site at Carmona as per the agreed existing allocation as was pre-Covid.

She added: To ensure parents are fully and accurately informed of this plan, I have sought for a meeting locally between the HSE and parents to discuss the issues and to assure parents that services will be provided on site by the Network Team to support their children.

Dublin Live has contacted the HSE for comment.

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HSE accused of 'playing Russian roulette' with severely disabled children in Dublin school - InTallaght