Former Labour Party senator Jimmy Harte was in his early 60s when he entered a nursing home after he suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Mr Harte, a father of four from Raphoe, Co Donegal, suddenly collapsed on the street in Dublin city centre in November 2013, just hours after he had attended a Republic of Ireland soccer match in Dublin. He was 55 at the time.
When his health deteriorated it was decided, following family meetings with the HSE and other practitioners, that he would be placed in a nursing home on a temporary basis. That temporary period has yet to end.
Mr Harte had spent years battling to recover, including intensive treatment and surgery in St James’s Hospital, Beaumont Hospital, the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire and Letterkenny hospital.
Uptake of flu vaccine this year ‘disappointing’, says HSE chief clinical officer
Public-only consultant contracts: is the health system finally beginning to see some benefits?
Hot school meals scheme: A ‘progressive’ government policy set to put children’s health at risk
‘It is so wrong on so many levels’: former senator Jimmy Harte’s health declined after move to nursing home following brain injury
Mr Harte, who previously worked as an insurance broker, and is a son of former Fine Gael minister of state Paddy Harte, officially resigned in 2015 as his health became the priority.
His wife, Mary Harte, believes that if there had been vital wraparound services in place for his long-term community-based neurological rehabilitation, the outcome might have been different.
“Jimmy is now 66 but when he entered the nursing home it was just prior to the Covid pandemic. He was and is too young to be there. But there was no other alternative,” Mrs Harte said.
“Covid compounded the situation. Jimmy was fully engaged; he survived the trauma, he was walking and talking. He had gotten to a remarkable place after a huge amount of effort. By no means were things perfect, far from it but we were lucky I had a voice and still have. Since then the situation has changed. Jimmy is now in a wheelchair.”
Mrs Harte said his recovery journey had been a “long and winding road leading to little”.
Figures released last year by the Government showed that almost 1,300 people aged 20-65 were still being placed in nursing homes due to a lack of adequate services, two years after an independent State investigation called for immediate reform of the situation.
The figure includes people with acquired brain injuries, spinal injuries, multiple sclerosis and other conditions. The ombudsman’s office has said while some progress has been made, reforms need to be speeded up to address the issue.
Mrs Harte said there was a failure in providing person-centred treatment and aligned services such as physiotherapy and speech and language therapy. She said Jimmy was back to 85-90 per cent of himself before he went into the nursing home.
“It’s a shocking indictment of our health services. The amount of work and effort that Jimmy and all our family and friends put in over the six or seven years before being placed in the nursing home setting was phenomenal. What went on to get him to the level before now has all been lost. You can’t bring a person to a certain level of rehabilitation and drop them.
“To waste that effort to get somebody to that point and leave them on their own is so wrong on so many levels.”
Mr Harte now gets out from the nursing home every Monday and Wednesday to the local shopping centre, with help from the Irish Wheelchair Association.
While Mrs Harte welcomed funding of €4 million being allocated by Government to the national trauma strategy, she said the lack of a dedicated community neurological service was “a gaping hole” in care.
She said she was doing her “best to inject levity for Jimmy ... I can’t fault the nursing home, they are constantly having to put out fires and doing the best that they can but as a result I have adjusted my expectations dramatically when it comes to my husband’s care and that really is not right.
“One has only to look at my husband. He could walk before he went into the nursing home setting and now he can’t. He’s in a wheelchair.”
Acquired Brain Injury Ireland is calling for proper investment in community services. The organisation believes years of underinvestment in community rehabilitation services and a failure to fully implement national policy have left thousands of survivors and families feeling lost and abandoned on their rehabilitation journey.
The Hartes’ daughter Amy Rose sheds light on how the entire family is affected when an acquired brain injury takes place.
“Quite honestly it’s hard to define the journey a family goes through. It happened to dad – but it also happened to mum. As children you have to find the space to process that monumental change. As thankful as we are to have Dad in our lives, and a strong mother behind him, it’s complex and it’s tough.”
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis