A Dublin councillor has hit out against the 'colossal' cash burden on parents to pay for hospital food in Dublin.
Fine Gael Councillor Vicki Casserly shared a TikTok in recent days when she attended Crumlin Children’s Hospital with her teenage son James, who is a wheelchair user and has cerebral palsy, idiopathic juvenile arthritis and osteoporosis. Cllr Casserly described her shock at paying €8.30 for two sausage rolls and a cup of tea in a café in the hospital.
She said: "That’s not a breakfast, that’s not a lunch, and that’s not a dinner. So you could have families in here for days and weeks on end and the financial burden it puts on people to afford to eat in here, it’s actually colossal and it’s disgraceful.”
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Cllr Casserly said that the expensive price of food in the hospital is a big issue and that it is "challenging to eat healthy" when in a hospital.
A second mother, Marie from Ballyfermot, also found herself in a similar position when her young daughter had to spend a few nights at the hospital recently. She told Dublin Live: "It's very expensive to get food at the hospital for the parents themselves, it's tough on parents especially in the long-term to afford it. I agree that something definitely needs to be done soon to help families like mine with back to school just around the corner."
Cllr Casserly said that she along with her colleague Jennifer Carroll MacNeill TD, and the Children’s Hospital Group are lobbying to alleviate the financial burden placed on parents and guardians of children who are in hospital. It comes as last Tuesday the Children in Hospital Ireland group published its pre-Budget submission, calling on the Government to provide a new social protection payment to combat the issue.
In particular, the group wants the payment to assist parents and guardians with the non-medical costs associated with children having to attend hospital. According to Children in Hospital Ireland, parents may spend in excess of €100 extra per day during their child’s hospitalisation.
Dublin Live has contacted Children's Hospital Crumlin for comment.
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