Anne O’Connell was only 37 years old when she suffered a stroke and subsequent brain injury in 2004. Her life changed forever. Before her brain injury, Anne was full of joy and hope for the future. Life after was very different, she was left feeling isolated and hopeless.

After almost 12 years of being inappropriately placed in a nursing home, Anne is sharing her story to raise awareness of brain injury and the impact living in a nursing home can have on a person under the age of 65.

In Ireland, there are approximately 19,000 new brain injuries every single year, that’s 52 every day and many of these people are inappropriately placed in nursing homes, left to merely exist. They lose their independence, confidence and hope. This needs to change.

We are calling for funding of €2m in Budget 2025 to establish a national case management service that could stop the inappropriate placement of young brain injury survivors in nursing homes for older people.

With this funding, we can expand our specialist brain injury case management team to all counties, reaching survivors nationwide and supporting them to live more independently in their communities, as close to home as possible. We want to ensure no brain injury survivor is left behind.