I thank the Minister of State for coming to respond to this matter and I thank the office of the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise it.
Melissa Corcoran is a 16 year old young woman from Balbriggan. Melissa has an unknown hypothalamic syndrome, features of which are hypo-pituitarism, expressed as growth hormone deficiency, TRH/TSH/thyroid deficiency, hypothalamic pituitary adrenal insufficiency, hypothalamic pituitary ovarian insufficiency, partial diabetes insipidus and abnormal thirst. She has abnormal body temperature control and is prone to hypothermia. She is being maintained on a wide range of medicines and treatments which are too complex to mention here.
This young lady has lived in St. Mary's Hospital, Drumcar, County Louth, for the past ten and a half years. She had a unit for herself which she knows as her home and a nursing staff to care for her. She has been well and happy for the past ten and half years in St. Mary's.
In March of this year Melissa went into Crumlin hospital for tests and while she was in Crumlin she became very ill, leading to her being on life support for two weeks. Her staff from St. Mary's, Drumcar, accompanied Melissa while she was in hospital, to care for her.
While Melissa was in Crumlin hospital, her unit in St. Mary's Drumcar was redecorated and a new bathroom installed for her return. Two days after Melissa came out of life support, her staff were withdrawn from her care and her crisis care unit was closed down. Her family were told that her home would not be reopening. This has been a devastating blow to this very ill 16 year old.
On Melissa's return to Drumcar she was placed in a completely unsuitable place for her very acute medical needs. Her medical condition and mental state are now critical. Melissa's family are distraught to find her home has been taken from her. All she wants to know is when she is going back to the unit she loves and knows so well.
Where are the rights of the child in this case? Will the Minister of State outline them here or will the courts, once again, have to establish them? How could someone make a decision which would adversely affect a child like Melissa so much? Will it have to take another tragedy of a 16 year old girl for lessons to be learned?
Melissa was left in the care of agency nurses who did not know her special needs or how to care for her. She ended up on life support once again in the Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda. She has a complex medical condition which includes low temperature control. Her previous home, which was a crisis care unit, which is only about 70 feet from where she is now, was adapted to suit her every need.
I appeal to the Minister, as does her family, urgently to reinstate Melissa in her home in the crisis care unit in St. Mary's, Drumcar. We are looking at a life and death situation. Why can Melissa not be left to live out whatever short life she has in her home in the crisis care unit, safely and with some contentment in the low quality of life which for any person is a huge and disproportionate burden, and particularly for Melissa and her family, to bear?
