‘All I want is to go outside’: Man trapped at home for years while waiting for electric wheelchair.

Michael is 73. He lost the use of his legs in 2022, and has been unable to leave his home in Clondalkin, west Dublin for more than two years as he cannot get an electric wheelchair. The HSE said he would be given one once his home was adapted.

Michael and his wife Concepta borrowed €5,000 for the local credit union to pay for the adaptations, but the HSE have now told them there is 37 month waiting list for a wheelchair.

Michael has severe spinal stenosis – a narrowing of the vertebrae in the upper spine – and chronic gout, both of which have resulted in paralysis of his legs. His manual wheelchair, provided by the HSE in late 2022, is suitable only for indoor use. He can propel himself around the house with his feet but cannot push himself along as the wheels are too small and his arms are too weak.

His wife, Concepta, is too frail to push him more than a few metres.

A survivor of institutional abuse at Letterfrack industrial school – to which Michael was sent at 14 years of age – he suffers ongoing post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety. Now he is trapped in his house, which he says has become his "cell", unable to go outdoors.

“I don’t know which way to turn. I sit at the back door for some fresh air. I am getting more depressed, anxious and emotional. Just to go to the shops... I just feel lost. I feel like giving up. I can’t go anywhere. All I want now is just to go outside.”

The HSE should of course supply him with the electric chair he urgently needs, but that could take years. Nobody should have to fight so hard to get the basic things they need to live with some dignity - and after the horrific ways this state and society failed Michael as child, it is beyond appalling that the state is failing him once again in the later stages of his life.

If we can raise €5,000 now we can get him an electric wheelchair that will allow him to get out of his house and get his life back. Any money left over from buying the chair will be used to pay off as much of the credit union loan they had to take out to fund the adaptations to their house.

Please donate whatever you can spare, and help Michael get his life back.