Katie Byrne from Cobh in Co Cork is an eight-year-old girl like many others. She gets up every morning and goes to her local national school. In the afternoon and evenings, she plays with her friends and her brothers, often running around the garden of her family home.
But it wasn’t always thus for Katie. As recently as four months ago, she was confined to a wheelchair, 24 hours a day, because of her cerebral palsy. Pioneering surgery in the United States changed her life.
Now she faces a return to the confines of that wheelchair amidst claims that the State is failing to provide her with the physiotherapy that she needs.
Katie was born three months premature and at seven months was diagnosed with CP.
The family checked the options that were available to her and found Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy, SDR which has been around since the '80s and is available in UK. They requested that Katie be sent there but she was not a viable candidate.
Instead, they decided to send her to Missouri, to a hospital in St Louis that specialises in this but they needed to raise all the money.
It took a total of 18 months to get the 60K together. Last year, the family traveled to the States for treatment and between the 24th Oct and 4th 2014 Nov she underwent an operation.
On the 7th Nov, she stood up on her own.
Three months after surgery, Katie's life is totally transformed. I went to Cobh to meet Katie and her family met her and she’s like any other eight-year-old.
When you’re in the house, you can see how it was all adapted for her. The width of corridors and doorways, the room devoted to the paraphernalia of her disability – the old wheelchairs, crutches, frames and other equipment.
Here is the full report:
