'All I want for Christmas is a hospital bed' - Donegal mum describes 10 year healthcare hell

A young Moville woman who has been battling health issues for almost ten years has spoken of her frustrations with the health service.

Natasha Crumlish, a mother-of-two, has told of her struggles to receive proper care since discovering a lump underneath her tongue in 2014.

At a public meeting in Letterkenny on Thursday night, Ms Crumlish spoke passionately about the lack of adequate oral maxillo care in the county. Oral Maxillo is the diagnosis and surgical care of the mouth, jaws, skull, face head and neck.

“I have tried to highlight how broken the health system is and I am suffering,” Ms Crumlish said.

“All I want for Christmas is a hospital bed. I just want my young life back again.

“I try to take the painkillers to get through as a mum, but I feel that they’re wrecking me as a person. Due to how unwell I am, I feel incapable of being the mother I should be an incapable of being the partner I should be.”

Having initially presented to Letterkenny University Hospital in 2014, Ms Crumlish contacted medics in 2016 to see where she stood on the waiting list. She told the meeting that she found out that there was only one oral maxillo consultant between Galway, Sligo and Donegal.

“I received many letters asking me if I still needed an appointment, which I did,” she said.

In 2018, Ms Crumlish received a call to see if she wanted to take up a private appointment at the Hollywood Clinic in Belfast.

“Without haste, I took it,” she recalled. “I was referred back to Letterkenny to have the lump surgically removed.”

Having subsequently developed flu-like symptoms and suffering from pain and pressure in my ear, neck and throat, Ms Crumlish contacted doctors again in 2019.

She said: “To my despair, I was told that I was removed from the list. The manners that my mum and dad taught me went out the window. The lady on the other end of the phone hung up on me. I was absolutely devastated.”

Ms Crumlish reached out to her own GP and opted to go to St James’ Hospital in Dublin for assessment.

Doctors in St James’ advised that they were unable to touch the lump as there were too many nerve endings. A biopsy was ruled out for the same reason and in May 2021 she underwent a procedure in Ballykelly.

The deep pressure in her ear, mouth, neck and throat persisted and the oral maxillo department told her it was now an ENT (ear, nose and throat) issue. The ENT waiting list is backlogged by as much as seven years.

“I hounded them,” she said. “I landed with no appointment week after week and they had to give in.”

An appointment with a consultant brought the news that she had cancer. However, a scan two days later came back clear. She was left with no choice but to return to Ballykelly, where she had another operation to remove a lump from her throat,

“The lump came back as reactive tonsil tissue,” she said.

When pain returned to her ear six months later, Ms Crumlish ‘I didn’t want to acknowledge it’.

“The pain got so bad,” she said. “The lymphoid was removed and has now been replaced with a cluster of solid lymphoids. The pain radiates deep in my ear and now also at the back of my head.”

In May of this year, Ms Crumlish spent 17 hours ‘on a hard chair’ at Letterkenny University Hospital.

She recalled: “I had no choice but to go to my car. There was snow and I was laying in the car in the freezing cold.”

Ms Crumlish told Thursday’s meeting that she borrowed money from her parents to assist with the costs of the procedures and said: “I was very lucky that my mum and dad were there for me and I just thunk of the poor person who has no option to go to.”