Enable Ireland facilities and service strongly criticised by parents

Enable Ireland, the country's main disablity service provider, are not providing adequate physiotherapy, nurses or facilities for physically disabled adults. By Emma Browne

Enable Ireland is providing an inadequate and unsuitable service to its physically disabled clients in Dun Laoghaire, according to Noelle Scanlan and Liam Doyle, who both have severely disabled daughters, aged 19.

Liam Doyle (not his real name) says the adult day service provided by Enable Ireland in Dun Laoghaire is unsuitable for those with severe disabilities like his daughter as there is no incontinnence nurse present all day for incontinent users of the service.

As well as the problems in Dun Laoighaire both parents say essential therapy is not being provided at the Enable Ireland clinic in Sandymount.

Enable Ireland is Ireland's main service provider to the physically disabled. It is funded by the HSE and through private fundraising, and provides a clinical and educational service to physically disabled children and adults.

April Scanlan and Liam Doyle's daughters have attended their local Enable Ireland school and clinic centre at Sandymount in Dublin 4 since they were babies. The two girls were due to leave school in June 2005 but have not been able to, as there is no adequate adult day service for them to attend once they do.

They are now due to leave school next year but there is still no suitable facility for them. The only option for their parents once the girls leave school is to look after their daughters themselves on a 24-hour basis. In the case of Liam Doyle and his partner, this would mean one of them giving up employment.

In 1997/98, Enable Ireland, in consultation with parents, decentralised their adult services to more local centres. In the case of Dublin, the adult service moved from Sandymount to local areas.

Both Noelle Scanlan and Liam Doyle were in favour of this but presumed there would be some kind of purpose-built centre. Instead, a Methodist Church hall in Dun Laoghaire was chosen to house the day service to adults in their locality. Both parents say the hall is completely inadequate and unsuitable for their severely physically-disabled children.

Liam Doyle says, "There are half a dozens kids [whose] disabilities are so severe or extreme that the service isn't suitable for them. My daughter is incontinent and there is no nurse there. Does my daughter leave my house at eight in the morning and go to the service until four in the afternoon and sit in her own urine for eight hours?"

Noelle Scanlan and Liam Doyle also have concerns about the clinic service provided at Enable Ireland. Noelle Scanlan says her daughter April did not receive any physiotherapy for months. "They told me she was receiving physiotherapy once a week but April told me that this was not the case. I checked to see if she was ever being taken out of class [to get physiotherapy] and the school said that she was never taken out. Because of this she is sitting in her chair from 7am until 3.45pm."

It was only when Noelle Scanlan raised the matter with the Enable Ireland clinic that April began to receive physiotherapy again. However, a list of physiotherapy sessions given by the clinic shows a majority of these involved April merely being readjusted in her seat. There was also a problem with April's wheelchair. "She was waiting for 13 months for a wheelchair. She had grown out of her existing one, crying in pain. Then when we got the new chair we had to wait for lateral supports – during this time I had to tie her in with a scarf."

Both parents are also concerned at the lack of speech therapy provided.

Enable Ireland's response

Enable Ireland has no plans to develop additional adult-services accommodation in Dun Laoghaire. In relation to therapy at the clinic they said: "Each child is assessed by an interdisciplinary team and therapy requirements are identified. Therapy is provided according to the identified needs taking into account the resources available and the priority for therapeutic management within the caseload.

"We work in partnership with parents and families... success in reaching the child's functional potential depends on the families' involvement in addition to direct professional input."

Village asked if the church hall in Dun Laoghaire was adequate. They did not address the question directly but said the services are regularly inspected by the HSE and programmes delivered at this service are nationally accredited. In relation to the lack of nurses to deal with incontinent adult clients at the centre, they said there are personal assistants employed by Enable Ireland but did not say if they attend the service in Dun Laoghaire. "The personal care needs of the adult-service user have been met very successfully by the personal assistants."