{"id":281845,"date":"2025-11-25T04:28:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T04:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/281845\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T04:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T04:28:13","slug":"derry-woman-with-ms-forced-to-fundraise-for-own-carers-or-end-up-in-nursing-home-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/281845\/","title":{"rendered":"Derry woman with MS forced to fundraise for own carers or end up in nursing home \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Co Derry<\/a> woman with Multiple Sclerosis<\/a> is using a JustGiving page to pay for private carers after her local health trust said they can\u2019t find anyone able to help her.<\/p>\n

The Northern Health Trust has told Elaine Kennedy (55), from Coleraine<\/a>, she will have to go into a nursing home, 26 miles away in Ballymena until they can source carers for her, or else foot the bill for care herself.<\/p>\n

The private company previously employed by the Trust to put in four care visits daily to Ms Kennedy, walked out in October, claiming it was too expensive to care for the mum-of-two who is paralysed from the waist down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were meant to be in for an hour, but sometimes they were taking an hour and 10 minutes or an hour and 20 minutes\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\"Specialist<\/a>\"‘I<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be much but sometimes it would take a wee bit longer because of my IBS or at other times because they sent over new carers so I\u2019d have to show them what to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe company said it was costing them money because the Trust only pays for exactly an hour and every time the call went over, they had to top that up for the carers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ElaineElaine Kennedy with her daughter Lucy Bush <\/p>\n

The Trust has since put in place a three-visit care package but this leaves Ms Kennedy unable to leave her bed for any reason from as early as mid-afternoon until around 10am the following morning.<\/p>\n

This means the 55-year-old, who spent much of her life working as a manager in Boots before she was diagnosed with MS in 2004, has had to pay \u00a3800 per month to hire local carers privately for one care visit per day to put her to bed at night.<\/p>\n

The family has been left shouldering the cost as the Trust requires all carers to hold Access NI clearance before it can issue payments, and has therefore refused to help cover the cost of the family\u2019s private carers, who do not have the necessary paperwork and whom the family have no means of getting vetted.<\/p>\n

Now, Ms Kennedy and her only daughter Lucy Bush have been forced to start an online fundraiser in a desperate bid to try and cover some of the costs of her mum\u2019s care and keep her at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe temporary company could only offer three calls and no bed call. So it was either go to bed at tea time or sort yourself out,\u201d Ms Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tea-time call sometimes come at 4 or 4:30pm. If I went to bed, I could be left until 10 o\u2019clock the next morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t get out of bed myself, I can\u2019t go to the bathroom myself, it\u2019s just not legally viable to leave you in bed that long with no care. So that\u2019s why I had to get my own carers in at bedtime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ElaineElaine Kennedy was diagnosed with MS in 2004 <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the partial care regime put in place by the Trust since October is due to end at the beginning of December, and Ms Kennedy is now faced with paying for the entirety of her own care or being placed in a nursing home by the Trust for a the foreseeable future until they can put a care package in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trust told me I would have to go to a care home until they could find care. But I just couldn\u2019t manage in one of those places,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not at the age or stage where I should be in such a facility. I just couldn\u2019t cope.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople that have gone in it before and it\u2019s been five, six, seven, eight, nine months. It\u2019s not a short-term fix. And it\u2019s not a nearby care home, it is in Ballymena, 26 miles away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Kennedy says the situation has caused her severe stress, anxiety, and a loss of independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t been eating or sleeping with the worry of all this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what the future holds for me, I\u2019m just in complete limbo and I don\u2019t know where to turn.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trust has this idea designed to \u2018promote your independence,\u2019 if you suffer from MS, but it doesn\u2019t promote my independence\u2014it feels like they\u2019re taking it away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got MS, my mind is sound, but I\u2019m being treated like I don\u2019t matter anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

The link for the family\u2019s Just Giving page can be accessed at: https:\/\/www.justgiving.com\/crowdfunding\/lucy-bush<\/a><\/p>\n

A Northern Health Trust spokesperson said: \u201cWe are continuing to work with Ms Kennedy\u2019s family and our colleagues in the independent sector to secure an appropriate care package as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we will make every effort to provide a package of care that will allow Ms Kennedy to remain in her own home, we are making contingency arrangements for a bed to be provided in a community care setting, in the interim.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate this is not the preferred option for the family and remain committed to securing a more suitable care arrangement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Co Derry woman with Multiple Sclerosis is using a JustGiving page to pay for private carers after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3017,115133,59,102,69223,10596,104,10856,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-281845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-co-derry","tag-coleraine","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-health-and-social-care","tag-multiple-sclerosis","tag-nhs","tag-stormont","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}