Damien Tiernan

The sun is shining, it’s lunchtime, or dinner time as a lot of people in this area still call it.

There’s not much traffic on the long straight stretch of road between Kilmacthomas and Carrick on Suir. The sat-nav on the electric car brings me to a small well kept bungalow on the left.

The below knee high dogs are in. Caroline is expecting me.

She’s never done anything like this before. Herself and her husband Nicky, are not the type of people to look for publicity.

They are salt of the earth people. They don’t shout loud. They don’t have friends in high places. They don’t have health insurance. They don’t have notions. They just want a normal, quiet life and don’t want to put in or out with anyone.

Caroline brings me into the kitchen. She has glasses, auburn hair, a lovely smile, and is wearing a casual blue top which is her size but might look at bit too big on her because she’s so thin.

One of the reasons she wears tops such as this is because she has a colostomy bag - a plastic bag that collects fecal matter from the digestive tract through an opening in the abdominal wall called a stoma.

Caroline is 47, originally from nearby Portlaw. Her husband, Nicky helps out on neighbours' farms. On the face of it, there should be no troubles, no pain, no worries - but Caroline is the embodiment of all that is wrong with the health services in Ireland in 2022.

More than 50,000 people in the listener-ship catchment area of this radio station are on some kind of waiting list. If you are not on a waiting list - you are lucky.

If you are on a list, Caroline’s story is your story. Her story is our story.

Caroline Comerford is a 47-year-old lady from Portlaw originally, now living in Crehana on the outskirts of Carrick-on-Suir.

In March 2019, Caroline had emergency stoma surgery at UHW and ended up spending nearly 5 months as an inpatient because of difficulties she encountered, which arose from it.

Almost a year later, she returned to UHW for surgery again, which thankfully, corrected the problems.

More good news followed that Caroline could then have surgery to reverse the procedure and date was set last January.

Since then, it’s been a series of bitter disappointments for Caroline.

Several dates have been set and the procedure has then been postponed due to bed capacity problems at the hospital.

When she did finally get her bed in recent weeks and it seemed the end was in sight, there was another brutal blow for Caroline.

Caroline – and her husband Nicky – told us their story.

To hear the story, click the play button on the photo above.