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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Michelle Cullen

Irish woman left helpless in urine-soaked bed for 21 hours with no food or water due to lack of carer

A Wexford woman has spoken out after she was left helpless in a urine-soaked bed for 21 hours with no food or water as no carer was available due to Covid absences.

Sharon Colgan, who has cerebral palsy, was left confined to her bed after going to bed at 8.20pm on Saturday until 5pm on Sunday evening.

Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, Sharon said the condition she was left in was 'inhumane' and made her wish she did not have to rely on health care providers to lead a normal life.

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She said: "The hardest part of the whole thing is, I mean, the fact that the HSE pay a home care provider company to provide care to me because of my disability… They let me down. That's what they did, and you know they didn't see anything wrong with it. All they kept saying to me was, 'we're trying to get a carer for you, we're trying to get a new carer for you.

close up of nurse consoling and holding hands with senior patient (gettyimages.ie)

"I understand that people get sick, but obviously, there was no other strategy put in place that they couldn't get a carer."

She added: "It's so inhumane that I was left in the situation that I was, and this is why I have to speak out because I want to find out was it just me that this has happened to or is there other people and they're afraid to go public and tell their situation.

"And what I've heard over the last couple of days since my story broke, it's across the board. It's not just my home provider. It's all of them in the country, which is so wrong."

At the beginning of the ordeal, Sharon said she believed everything would work out, but as the day went on, she lost hope.

She said: "At the start, it was like it's going to be fine. They'll sort something. They'll find something, but as the day went on, I was kind of saying to myself, I wish I didn't have these disabilities. I wish I didn't need the care. I wish I had a normal life that I didn't have to depend on care companies for this."

Having been in her bedroom for 21 hours, Sharon had no access to food or water and was unable to tend to her two dogs.

She said she had "not a thing, no water, no food, nothing, and I've two dogs with me as well, and they couldn't get out either."

She added: "It is unthinkable, and what's the sad part is you know it's not the company's fault in a way, it's not the home care provider company's fault, I don't think.

"I think its the fact that people just don't want, they're not taking up positions as carers or they're leaving for better-paid jobs and stuff, and that's not fair either on us that have to depend on the home care packages that the HSE are giving us and put in place and I have to look at it and say this is my future. My disabilities are not going to go away. this is my life now, so I have to make sure that I have everything that I can live independently in my own home with the care package in place."

Speaking about what she wants to see change, Sharon said: "I want all care companies to be investigated. Not just the one that provides my care, all of them in the country.

"I want a new strategy for healthcare to be put in place by the government today, not tomorrow or next week. Today. I want it to really address and turn right around that it makes it easier for health care workers, health care companies and health care users like myself that we can say right we don't have anything to worry about anymore."

READ MORE:Covid Ireland numbers today as almost 7,000 new cases confirmed amid concern about new XE variant

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