LITTLE Ali O’Shea from Ardnacrusha is not happy about going back to school – not because she doesn’t like schoolwork or being with her friends but because she’s very afraid of giving her mother Covid-19.
Her mum, Pauline, has suffered from heart failure and her condition is such that she has had a defibrillator fitted in her body to resuce her in the event of her heart stopping,
When teachers asked their pupils to write something about coming back to school, nine-year-old Ali wrote that she feared she would infect her mother.
Pauline (47) is an advocate with the Irish Heart Foundation to have under 70s heart failure patients moved up the priority list for Covid vaccination.
Pauline is one of 7,000 Irish heart failure patients under 70 and she believes they have been totally forgotten in the priority list of people who urgently need vaccination.
” I absolutely believe that older people who are more vulnerable should receive the vaccine first.
“Many people in the heart failure community are in that group and will be vaccinated but for those of us who are younger, we’re just not being mentioned. We’re asking to be moved up the list so that we can stop living in terror.”
The mother-of-three described to the Limerick Post what precautions she has to take as her children are back at school.
“When I pick them up in the car, I cover them in sanitiser, even their heads. None of us know exactly where this virus lands.
“When they get home, they change out of their school uniforms right away. I know one women in the heart failure community who can’t even hug her children until they have changed all of their clothes at the back door.
“We can’t afford to take any risk because Covid attacks the heart and there’s a real likelihood that if any of us get this, we’ll be leaving our children without a mother.”
Over the last 12 months, Covid has been added to the restrictions which Pauline, and people with her condition, have been subjected to.
With three children of school age, their interaction in classrooms exposes Pauline to more than 70 people who may or may not carry the virus.
“You’re trying to wear two hats – you have this medical condition but you’re also a mother and children need their mother. We want to be able to mother our children freely, away from the real worry that Covid might get us.
“We’re not asking to be be put up the list ahed of more vulnerable people – just to be included on the list as a priority”.
