THIS is little Sarah McFeeley – the little girl whose life was changed after medical negligence at Letterkenny General Hospital.
It’s a year ago this month since Donegal Daily reported how Sarah, then just three, stood alone for the first time in her life thanks to big-hearted family, friends and neighbours.
Dad Ray and mum Bronagh have worked tirelessly to raise funds to help Sarah. And we helped where we could by publicising events organised to support her.
On Wednesday at the High Court in Dublin the HSE and the hospital settled the medical negligence case for €1.3M.
Sarah was born with a rare form of cerebral palsy called Dyskininetic CP which meant even the simple things in life proved impossible for her.
But her mum and dad Ray McFeeley and Bronagh Colhoun decided they had to give their daughter every chance for a normal life.
So they decided to launch a fund-raising campaign to send her to the famous Peto Institute in Hungary.
The institute deals specifically with people with cerebral palsy and helps them through a special programme called Conductive Education.
The community in her hometown of Letterkenny and across Donegal got behind the campaign to raise the €6,000 needed for treatment.
The campaign involved everything from sponsored tattoos to beard-shaves to marathons.
While in Budapest Sarah even managed to stand alone by herself for an entire 15 seconds – something she had never done before.
When she returned dad Ray told us she was ready to take on the world!
Ray said the sessions, often up to three times a day, were very tough on little Sarah and on himself and mum Bronagh.
“Both ourselves and Sarah have learned so much and we are going to put it to good use.
“It was tough on her at times and you just wanted it to stop but we knew we had to continue on for her sake.
“Even when we arrived they put her in a chair and I thought she was going to fall out but she held on. They knew exactly what they were doing.
“It was worth every penny going there and we are so grateful to all the people of Donegal who helped in any way to raise the money to get Sarah there,” he said.
Ray says he knows it’s going to be a long road but they are just so happy that Sarah has now been given a chance at a more normal life.
“It’s going to take a lot of work but the quality of Sarah’s life is going to be so much better after going to the Peto Institute.
“There are no miracle cures or anything like that but they do teach us ways of making Sarah’s quality of life so much better in ways we could never have imagined,” said Ray.
Today we heard what had happened to Sarah.
There was excessive administration of the drug syntocinon to the mother and a failure to recognise the hyper stimulation.
The HSE admitted liability in this case last year.
Outside the High court in Dublin today, solicitor Damien Tansey speaking on behalf of Sarah’s parents, said they were absolutely delighted and relieved that the case is now finally over.
“They are obviously quite upset and disappointed that it took the HSE over two years to admit liability, and it should also be taken into consideration that the parents themselves sought explanations for what had happened after the birth, and that was never forthcoming.”
The solicitor added that Sarah was the first born child of this young family.
“The parents have shown enormous courage and massive emotional stamina to get this far. There are a lot of pitfalls along the way in any legal battle, and the costs are just astronomical, so they deserve enormous credit for staying the course and having the courage to do what they have done.”
“They recieved so much support from friends and family and without them they wouldn’t have been able to get through this, there are forever indebted to those people who have helped.”
Family and friends are delighted – because only they know what this family has been through.
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