Injured man sent to 'wrong place'

The mother of a young man who had suffered head injuries in a car accident had to put her son in a institution for the mentally handicapped because of the lack of services for brain injury victims.

Three years after his accident, and well on the road to recovery, Mr John Costello was placed in the Learning Disabilities Unit of Peamount Hospital because there was no longer room for him at the National Rehabilitation Hospital, and his family home was not yet equipped to meet his needs.

"Peamount was just the wrong place for John," Ms Annette Costello said. "People are looked after, but it's not for rehabilitation. I had to fight to get physio for John."

After 16 months in Peamount Hospital, Ms Costello brought her son home.

"I had to take him out. He was going downhill. With a brain injury, if you sit back and do nothing the brain won't develop. You have to constantly work the brain, and it will start to heal itself, and in a way we'd been very lucky that that was possible with John.

"He didn't have a change in personality. He didn't become aggressive. He wasn't the exact same as before the accident, but he was still a young man who wanted to do things."

The inadequate resources available for treating accident victims like Mr Costello were discussed at an acquired brain injury seminar in Dublin yesterday.

Mr Costello was 18 when he accepted a lift from someone he knew on the way home from the pub. He was in the back of the car when it ploughed into a granite pillar. Now 24, he uses a wheelchair, but is learning to walk. He can wash, dress and feed himself and he speaks coherently but, he said, it wasn't always like that.

"I remember when I opened my eyes I could see there were two windows in the room, so I knew I wasn't in my room at home. I could see my brother sitting there and I thought I was calling him, but I was only doing it in my mind. Nothing was coming out."

He was six months in a semi-comatose state before he started the process of rehabilitation.

"I was like being a baby. There were some things I knew inside how to do, but other things I had to learn all over again. Sometimes I knew in my head how to do stuff, but I just couldn't get my body to do it."

The support from physiotherapists, speech therapists and psychologists was great while Mr Costello was in the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire, but since he left Peamount the Costellos have for the most part had to go it alone.

"I've definitely improved being at home and I have the support of Headway [the national association for acquired brain injury] but things like physio, I just have once a week, because we have to pay for it privately," Mr Costello said.