Irish Dad Pens Heartbreaking Open Letter To Health Minister And Receives Overwhelming Reaction

The family of baby Noah Doyle are “humbled” by the overwhelming reaction they have received after posting an open letter to Health Minister Leo Varadkar regarding their struggle. 

The father of little Noah, who suffers with a congenital heart condition, was forced to travel to a hospital in Northern Ireland on Christmas Day when his son’s medical card was delayed.

When the family ran out of feeding equipment for Noah just days before Christmas, they were told they couldn’t be supplied with the tubes without a medical card, despite the fact that they had first applied for the card in July 2015.

Taking to Facebook, Adam Doyle directed an open plea to Leo Varadkar to re-examine the application process.

He wrote:

“Perhaps if you got your head out of the huge thousand page reports you hide behind and came and spent a night with my son, look into his eyes as he wakes up panicking, unable to breathe, unable to understand why he can’t and looking to his father for help that he cannot provide, you would better understand the situation.

“Perhaps if you knew what it was like to be afraid of making your son laugh in case it makes him vomit, you would be better equipped to shape a system that provides care.

“Perhaps then you could do something to change the fact the staff in your paediatric hospitals continually have to fight against your incompetent system to provide care for the most vulnerable babies in our country.

“They do an awesome job and we will forever be in their debt, but don’t you dare go taking any credit for the things they do, because they do it in spite of you and your system.

“For whatever reason he has been given a really shitty deal in life, but quite possibly his worst piece of luck was being born here, where meeting unrealistic budgets are more important than caring for babies and where paperwork and bureaucracy are more important than getting food into a sick baby’s belly. It borders on abuse, it certainly qualifies as neglect.

“If you have any level of care or compassion for the babies of this country, that shouldn’t sit well with you.”