“We cannot keep going on like this - this is people’s lives” - manager Máire Uí Chomhaill

Staff at Ionad Naomh Pádraig, Dobhair, clean the homes of the elderly and install alarms when they are in hospital; provide 82 nourishing lunches to the school next door, provide lovely meals to the elderly three days a week, provide free counselling, provide services to the Ukrainians in the community and are currently flying 293 patients to Dublin for treatment or diagnosis, the Public Health Minister Frank Feighan heard on Friday. 

The minister travelled to Gaoth Dobhair on Friday to launch  the Sláintecare Healthy Communities Initiative. 

The manager of Ionad Pádraig, Dobhair, Máire Uí Chomhaill took the opportunity to outline the sterling work that she and her staff do and appealed for more funding from the government. She said staff had to be at work on Friday morning at 5.45am to ensure the school children, at the Deis school nearby, had a healthy lunch as well as to prepare for the ministerial arrival. 

She told those gathered at Ionad Pádraig, Dobhair, that those at the centre do ‘absolutely everything they can to help their local community.’ 

She appealed for social prescribers to be given more hours and outlined the long distances they travel to carry out their work. 

“We have 293 patients who are flying to Dublin for diagnosis and treatment. This is massive. We took people in our cars until this week when we received funding for a car,” she said. 

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She outlined how up until recently, those at the centre ferried people to and from appointments in Derry, Letterkenny and on occasion to Roscommon. 

“When I heard you were from Roscommon, I was very glad because I was going to make the point that we took an elderly man down there to attend a hospital appointment. He would have had to get five buses to get down to Roscommon and we took him down in a car. I think it was four times one of the staff drove home down. He had to get a taxi twice because we were busy. Once it was €380 and the second time it was €500 because he became unwell.”

She told the minister that those at the centre were at breaking point: “We cannot keep going on like this - this is people’s lives. This is the elderly of this community that we are trying to look after. We are trying to do the best we can but we just don’t receive enough funding. If we don’t do it, who is going to do it? We are filling the gaps. We are trying the best that we can,” she said.