'More beds needed for brain injury'

A call for additional hospital beds to be made available for patients with acquired brain injury has been made by Labour TD for Cork North Central Kathleen Lynch.

She has also called for plans to site a section of the National Rehabilitation Hospital and the Orthopaedic Hospital in Cork to be speeded up. 

Deputy Lynch said a number of years ago a huge amount of work was put in to bringing a section of the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire to the Cork area, but this plan came to nothing.

She pointed out that there is currently only one rehabilitation hospital for brain injury, in Dun Laoghaoire, and it only has 110 beds.

Deputy Lynch said despite the fact that early treatment is critical in terms of helping people with brain injury to walk or talk again, some patients in the south have to wait two years for treatment due to a lack of bed capacity.

[Posted: Thu 20/03/2008]