Cavan's Hydrotherapy Pool which is run by Enable Ireland has no clinical trained staff and remains closed as a result. That's according to Deputy Niamh Smyth who has called on the HSE to staff the facility so it can be accessed by children and adults with disabilities.
Speaking to Northern Sound, Deputy Smyth says she knows an 8-year-old local child - with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis - whose family drive past the facility to travel to the Tallaght pool for her therapy - which is 106kms from Cavan town.
She highlighted how the local pool would help to decrease joint swelling and add support to the child's body and joints, if it was open. Deputy Smyth added that her anger is now focussed on the failure to open the facility so that users can reap its benefits.
"I do not think it's too much to ask for and how it would reduce travel time and hardship for this child and family. There are many other users waiting for its therapeutic effects like stroke victims, all sufferers of arthritis and it is a reliever of stress and depression in people.
"The potential of this facility only became known when I brought Minister Rabbitte to see the facilities in Enable Ireland last April. Locals fundraised significant monies over a decade ago to put this facility in place and one year later it is still not functioning for the purpose it was built for," she said.
