The Patients Deserve Better campaign launched in are CHO8 (Westmeath, Meath, Offaly, Longford, Louth and Laois) on Tuesday June 13th, calling for the establishment of a dedicated community neurorehabilitation team.

Speaking at the online event, Dr Karen O' Connell, Consultant Neurologist at Tallaght Hospital stressed that having community neurorehabilitation teams in local areas could shorten 50% of in-patients length of stay in hospital and that a specialised team in the CHO8 area would fill a large existing gap.

Lived experience representative and living with an acquired brain injury, Dr Rosie Mangan shared her own story and says that her treatment will be ongoing and is a marathon and not a sprint. She has to travel three times a week to Dublin (from Offaly) to receive neurorehabilitation because there is no team in her local CHO8 area. She stresses that having no local access to these services is like a "barrier to my life's progression".

Lived experience representative and living with MS, Sorcha Boyle lives on the Louth/Monaghan border and has to travel to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dublin for her ongoing outpatient neurorehabilitation. She last saw her therapist in 2016. She needs access to vital services locally. In her own words, " I would like to live well with my MS". Not having these services locally is just not good enough.

For more information about the campaign, go to Patients Deserve Better