Edenderry's Anne Marie highlights huge shortage of neurorehabilitation beds

An Edenderry woman has credited her recovery from an unexplained neurological condition to the intensive rehabilitation she received at Peaumont Healthcare in Dublin.

37-year old Anne Marie Leonard outlined details of her struggle to regain mobility and perform everyday tasks again at a special event in Peaumont Healthcare Dublin which was organised by the Neurological Alliance Ireland (NAI) to mark the recent World Brain Day.

The event was held to highlight the alarming shortage of neurorehabilitation beds, with a presentation to the asttendinhg Ministers and TD's showing that Ireland has less than half of the neurorehabilitation beds needed for its population.

Forty neurological charities came together at the event to call on the Government to deliver on its Programme for Government pledges to neurorehabilitation in the upcoming Budget.

Ireland has a 58% shortfall in the number of neurorehabilitation beds for patients recovering from conditions such as stroke, acquired brain injury and those living with progressive conditions like multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. The Programme for Government includes a commitment to develop more specialist inpatient neurorehabilitation beds in response to this critical shortage.

Speaking at the event, Anne Marie Leonard said she was working as a carer when she started experiencing symptoms in 2023, and she was referred to Peamount Healthcare for rehabilitation.

“Without Peamount I’d still be in a wheelchair and probably in a nursing home, because I needed so much support to even have a shower. Learning to do everyday tasks again was so challenging; after being at Peamount for a while, a member of staff brought me to a kitchen to make scrambled eggs – a task that might have taken 30 seconds before I got ill – it took 30 minutes, but I did it and with their help I continued to improve" she said.

While admitting that her life is "different now" Anne Marie said her "genuine friends and family members" in her life had stood by her and kept her buoyed up. "While I was in hospital my best friend had a baby, Fionn, and she and I joked that it was a competition to see which of us would walk first" she added.

“I’m so grateful to the team at Peamount Healthcare for their continued support, and I’m thankful I can come here and tell everyone the difference the neurorehabilitation bed made to me and my story” said the Offaly woman.

The CEO of the Neurological Alliance of Ireland (NAI), Magdalen Rogers told the event that over 16% of people in Ireland are currently living with a neurological condition. Behind these statistics are the individuals and their families struggling to come to terms with the effects of a neurological condition and they have a huge fear that they won’t get access to the specialist care they need" she said.

Six years on from the publication of a national framework which committed to ensuring a minimum of 306 beds across the country, Ms. Rogers said there is still a shortage of 175 beds. "Our recent survey of 700 people living with a neurological condition across Ireland showed a staggering 76% had not been able to access inpatient neurorehabilitation when they needed it” she said.

Peamount Healthcare is the regional site for HSE Dublin Midlands for the development of inpatient neurorehabilitation, and it opened ten beds at the end of 2020. "Since then over 400 patients have received the specialist inpatient rehabilitation that they need" said Tanya King, CEO of the facility.

The Neurological Alliance of Ireland is calling for investment in 45 beds in the upcoming Budget to begin to address the shortfall of neurorehabilitation beds across the Midlands and South West.

The NAI highlighted at the World Brain Day event, that gaps in neurorehabilitation services across Ireland mean a quarter of those surveyed in its recent ‘The Right Care in the Right Place’ report have never been able to access neurorehabilitation.

A high proportion of the 700 individuals who responded to the survey also reported being unable to access neurorehabilitation services in the past 12 months, with 58% of those living in the Midlands unable to access the rehabilitation they needed.

In addition to its call to address the shortage of neurorehabilitation beds, the NAI is also seeking investment in four community neurorehabilitation teams for the North West, North Dublin/North East, South East and Midlands.

The NAI represents over forty charities advocating for the rights of over 860,000 people in Ireland living with a neurological condition.