wheelchair Young mum reveals devastation at waiting three years for life changing surgery for daughter (6)

"Mammy when can I walk again?"

A heartbroken young Mum has revealed her devastation at not being able to answer her six year old daughters question due to what is now a three year wait for life changing surgery.

Denise O’Hehir’s daughter AbbieRose was born with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus a disease that sees her have excess fluid on her brain, and was previously able to walk using splints and a walking aid.

However as the condition worsened she has become confined to a wheelchair until she undergoes surgery.

Now Denise, who lives in Bettystown County Meath, is furious at health minister Stephen Donnelly.

She told the Sunday World: "AbbieRose’s orthopaedic surgeon Conor Green has told us she will be back walking the way she used to be within four weeks of having the operation but there is no sign of that happening any time soon.

"Conor even met with an Oireachtas committee prior to Christmas to plead for funding to open theatres that are currently closed at Cappagh hospital but nothing has happened.

"Stephen Donnelly should be ashamed of himself and so to be fair should his predecessors as health ministers they are all as bad as one another.

"We are not even the worst hit by all the cuts, I know of cases where parents and kids were all gowned up ready for surgery in Temple Street when the procedure was cancelled as the surgeon was needed elsewhere.

"Can you even begin to imagine how horrific that is.

"When AbbieRose asks me when she can walk again and I can’t give her an answer it destroys me inside, I feel like telling her to ask Stephen Donnelly but even he does not seem to have an answer."