A Tipperary autism advocate has given the HSE 8 weeks to act on their promises.
During a meeting with the CEO Bernard Gloster, Ardfinnan’s Cara Darmody, he offered her an apology, while also assuring her that he wants to see change when it comes to disability discrimination.
Cara told Tipp Today that he agreed with her that families who pay for assessments should be reimbursed by the Health Service Executive and this was something he wanted to see changed.
She says the measure of success will be how much action there has been when she gets the Leaving Cert results in eight weeks:
“It was very important that he apologised at the beginning because it showed that he was sympathetic, it showed that he was genuinely sorry about what happened, so it showed that he was genuine, that he actually wanted to change. He was very convincing and he told me that he is going thang it right now there is 8 weeks to go until the big leaving cert results come out so I guess we will have to wait and see what happens and if change doesn’t happen I am going to come back next year.”
Her father who discussed disability services with the Taoiseach yesterday said the meeting was 5 out 10.
Mark Darmody along with his daughter Cara, who have been on a long running campaign to see better autism supports, met Leo Varadkar in Dublin he agreed there needed to be urgent action.
Mark wants to see the precedent set by them whereby private assessments are covered by the HSE something all families get, he wants to see definite dates and parameters.
He told Tipp FM that he was surprised at the lack of insight the Taoiseach had on the fact that management in the HSE are not regulated :
“the lack of knowledge of this , and it is only in these meetings and I have learned this when you sit done with them what they don’t know is frightening, no it is, it is frightening what they don’t know about these organisations … the this why they are not holding enough of these Lived Experience meetings you cannot get a meeting with the Taoiseach that is why I am emphasising the thanks to Alan Kelly, because you can’t get in the door to these guys.”
