A woman with disabilities slept in her wheelchair at night due to a lack of personal assistance hours, her heartbroken brother has said.
Elizabeth Canning was 59 years old when she died at home in Dublin last May, following a long series of illnesses.
The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) yesterday published new research to state that people like Elizabeth are confined to their homes because of a personal assistance shortage.
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Liz’s brother Con, 56, told the Irish Mirror that his sister spent much of her last years indoors, unable to leave home, because of the lack of services.
He said: “My sister had no life in the end. If there was no personal assistance available to put her to bed, she would sleep in her power chair.
“By the time assistance arrived in the morning, her back would be so sore that she would spend most of the day in bed.
“That’s no life. She couldn’t get out, so watching TV shows like Mrs Brown’s Boys and Netflix filled her time.
“But that didn’t replace the life that she could’ve had with better services.”
Liz had curvature of the spine, spina bifida, epilepsy, and suffered a brain injury in 2013 – all conditions of chronic pain, which Chronic Pain Ireland estimates affects up to 36% of the population.
The ESRI report from its National Disability Authority highlighted a list of concerns affecting people with disabilities.
These included a lack of personal assistants to help them to live independently, meaning some were homebound and relied on unpaid family support.
Devoted brother Con sold his car to buy a wheelchair-accessible vehicle so that he could take Liz to hospital appointments.
He said: “Liz died after years of excruciating pain and I think the health system let her down.
“Liz was born with spina bifida. It generated into nerve damage in later life and she suffered a brain acquired injury in 2013 that left her with left-side paralysis.
“That’s when she became disabled.
“She couldn’t get on a bus if there was a pram and she was paying around €200 a month for wheelchair-accessible taxis to take her to hospital appointments.
“She was worried about her weekly grocery shop and other bills, all of which she was paying for with social welfare and our family helped.
“It cost me €15,000 to change cars to get one that could accommodate her wheelchair.
“I took her on outings to get her out of the house, but by 2018, Liz said her pain was on a scale of 8 out of 10.
“She was in too much pain to walk or even sit in a car. She could no longer go to family events and that really upset her.
“Her carers were exceptional, but they weren’t always available when Liz needed. That wasn’t their fault, they were under resourced.
“The ESRI report has said people become isolated without trained personal assistants and that was definitely the case with Liz.
“She became isolated, she got lonely, her quality of life became terrible.”
Charities like Chronic Pain Ireland, Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Ireland, and Acquired Brain Injury Ireland have called for greater services for patients.
The ESRI’s report author Eamonn Carroll said “supports like personal assistance” are needed to improve quality of life.
He warned that existing “supports do not go far enough to allow most service users to live a full and independent life”.
James Casey of Independent Living Movement Ireland said access to a personal assistance service is a “right” of people with disabilities.
Liz’s brother Con yesterday told the Irish Mirror: “A national organisation that is focused on personal assistance is needed for the whole country, so disabled people get the services they need.”
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