What happens when the sole carer of a child with complex needs is themselves incapacitated? It's obviously a bad scenario for both the child and the carer, so if it could be easily avoided by, say, adjusting the government’s vaccine priority list, wouldn't it make sense to easily avoid it? These are the sort of questions posed by Aisling McNiffe on the Ray D'Arcy Show. Aisling is Jack's sole carer and Jack,15, needs a lot of care – indeed, Aisling was speaking from Crumlin Children's Hospital, where's she's been for a week with Jack as doctors perform tests: 

"He has Down syndrome. He has a rare auto-inflammatory disease which causes really painful arthritis, among other things. He has severe to profound ID [intellectual disability] so he’s non-verbal. He's a wheelchair user. He's immuno-suppressed. He’s tube-fed around the clock. He had mild scoliosis and hip dysplasia. He has chronic lung disease and he has a heart condition which needs further surgery." 

Needless to say, with all Jack's complex needs, caring for him is challenging at the best of times, but since the first lockdown last March, things have been far more complicated. Virtually all of the supports Jack received from the HSE came to a halt due to the pandemic and Laura Lynn's Hazel House Residential Respite had to close for six months. As his sole carer, Aisling worries what would happen to Jack if she were incapacitated by Covid. And, she told Ray, Aisling got a taste of what might happen when she injured her back recently: 

"He had to go to Hazel House for crisis respite and it just kind of – like, that’s exactly what would have to happen if I got Covid and I became very ill. He would have to have crisis respite and if there wasn't room for him, say, in Hazel House, where would he end up?" 

Given the strain on the health service, Aisling worries that Jack could end up in a nursing home or somewhere else entirely unsuitable for him. She's calling on the government to put carers on the vaccine priority list. Not move them up the list, because they're currently not on it at all.  

"There are 500,000 carers in Ireland, saving the state billions. And many of us, like me, care 24/7 and with very little support in this whole pandemic." 

If vaccination priorities don't change, Aisling and her family will have to cocoon until September, or possibly longer to try and keep him safe.  

You can hear Ray's full conversation with Aisling by going here. 

Niall Ó Sioradáin