A lack of nursing staff may delay the return home of a local boy who is currently being cared for in Temple Street Children’s Hospital in Dublin.
12 year old Alex Butler was born extremely prematurely at 28 weeks with cerebral palsy and epilepsy.
Over the past year he’s developed breathing problems, which means he needs full time tracheostomy care.
For Alex to return to his home in Killenaule to be cared for, he will need a team of nurses to make sure his care needs are met 24 hours a day.
However speaking on Tipp Today earlier his mother Maggie said this is proving difficult.
“So we have two nurses that have come on board that would have been with Alex before the tracheostomy. But Alex’s nursing hours will have increased so he’ll get 10 hours at night and 8 hours in the day. The weekends we wanted to ourselves so we’ll have the weekend days to ourselves and the weekend nights will be covered.
“So we need more than two nurses but they’re just not there.”
