Wendy and Patrick Haren are delighted and relieved that Patrick has been accepted to St Mary’s High School, Brollagh RMGFH11
AFTER weeks of phone calls, emails and letters young Patrick Haren, who lives with a rare disability, will attend school at St Mary’s Brollagh in November.
His attendance at the school had been in doubt due to department funding cuts, but thanks to the perseverance of his mother Wendy there was a positive breakthrough last week.
Speaking to the Herald this week she confirmed work would be carried out at the school to accommodate Derrygonnelly lad Patrick, who was diagnosed with severe ‘scoliosis’ as well as ‘kyphosis’ when he was young leaving him with a condition in which his spine is at an angle of over 100 rather than 180 degrees.
Despite being 12-years-old Patrick is small in stature and resembles a four-year-old in size and requires frequent medical appointments at Musgrave Hospital in Belfast.
It was agreed in May that a hygiene room would be put in for Patrick who is incontinent and requires it for changing, along with hand rails around the school, but when the family drove past the school in July and noted work had not yet started, Wendy became concerned.
After making enquiries with the local Education Authority they confirmed that funding had not yet been made available from the Department of Education.
After weeks of uncertainty Wendy took it upon herself to contact the department directly last Wednesday and funding was released on the same day.
The news has been a massive boost for the Haren family as work is set to start imminently.
“I’ve been told it will be late Halloween, early Christmas before he will be able to go as the work hasn’t even started yet.
“There’s a lot of ground work that has to be done, but I’m just happy he will be able to go.
“It never entered my head that I would have to do this.
“All the emails and letters and phone calls I have done over the last seven weeks. I even emailed Mr O’Dowd myself and asked him why the department has no money to carry out this work.
“It was just a very stressful time. Patrick has enough on his plate without worrying about whether he will get to go to school or not.”
Mrs Haren reserved special praise for St Mary’s for the way in which they have helped the family and Patrick will now join his brother Declan (15) at the school.
“I just want Patrick to have some sort of normality in his life, because he’s suffering daily, he has lots of medical appointments and the hospital in Belfast at Musgrave is like a second home.
“Just to mix with other children will be great.
“He’s not doing a full curriculum, he’s just going to be doing Maths and English, ICT and Home Economics, those are the four subjects he wants to do and will be in Monday, Wednesday and Friday 10am to 2pm.
“He won’t go on to do exams or anything like that, but it just means he’s just one of the other children.”
Patrick, a former pupil at Killyhommon Primary School, Boho visited his new school yesterday and is looking forward to an extra long holiday break before starting in Brollagh.
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