OPINION: Action needed to help Kenny Tynan

One of the privileges of working as a journalist is that you are sometimes entrusted with telling a person's story during the most difficult moments in their life.

Many of those stories and interviews linger in your mind long after the newspaper which carried them has started to yellow around the edges.

Myself and photographer Ann Hennessy had one such encounter last July. Athlone native Kenny Tynan invited us into his home in Ballyforan one morning to talk about the recurrence of his brain tumour which had materialised some months previously.

It had been a particularly tough time for the married father of four. The previous year he lost his mother, Teresa, to cancer. Chemotherapy had taken a terrible toll on her.

“I know chemotherapy works wonders for certain people, but it made my mother very sick. For the last six months of her life she had no quality of life,” said Kenny.

He was determined to do everything he could to ensure his own battle with cancer did not end the same way. As a result, he said ‘no’ to the year of chemotherapy and six months of radiotherapy which he was told he needed.

The musician and DJ instead sought alternative treatment. He had a consultation with the Kalapa Clinic in Spain where, unlike in Ireland, he could legally access medical cannabis. The clinic prescribed a course of treatment involving strong doses of THC and CBD, active compounds found in cannabis plants.

As a result, Kenny became a medical refugee.

He spent the best part of three months living in an Airbnb apartment in Spain, away from his children, because that was the only way he could obtain the treatment he felt he needed to preserve and prolong his quality of life.

He and his wife Marie are adamant that medical cannabis has had an exceptionally positive effect on him. Seizures he had been having in Ireland did not occur at all while he was undergoing treatment in Spain. He was able to cut down on his other prescribed medication, and his most recent brain scan showed no growth in the tumour since he started this alternative course of treatment.

Since he returned home last autumn, Kenny should have been spending his time focusing solely on improving his health and enjoying the company of his family and friends.

Instead he has been forced to lead an emotionally draining campaign to be allowed legally access the same medical cannabis treatment in Ireland that he was prescribed in Spain.

He has done numerous interviews with radio stations and other newspapers, documented every step of his journey on social media, and sent letters to the Taoiseach, the President, and the Minister for Health.

Through it all he has shown the single-minded stubbornness of a person who knows he is fighting for the right reason; the best possible outcome for himself and his family.

While awaiting developments here, Kenny felt he had no choice but to ask a friend in Spain to post his medical cannabis to Ballyforan. In April, a package containing €500 worth of his treatment was seized at a mail centre in Dublin.

As if brain cancer wasn’t enough to deal with, Revenue told him he could now be prosecuted for importing his medicine.

A small number of people have been awarded licenses allowing them to undergo medical cannabis treatment in Ireland. These include Ava Twomey, an eight-year-old from Cork with a rare form of epilepsy. Her mother, Vera, previously had to take Ava to Holland to undergo the medical cannabis treatment that has been stopping her seizures.

Vera drove from Cork to Athlone to take part in a recent protest march in support of Kenny’s campaign, and she spoke about the unfairness of forcing patients out of Ireland to access medical treatment that’s readily available elsewhere in the EU.

The most recent reply Kenny received from the Health Minister told him he may be allowed access his treatment if a consultant in Ireland prescribes it but, up to the time of writing, Kenny has not been able to find one who is willing to write the prescription.

All the while, time is ticking on. Any change in his tumour could leave him with just a couple of months, or possibly less, to live.

Cancer has affected just about every family in Ireland in some shape or form, and any one of us could find either ourselves or a loved one in a similar situation to this.

It’s profoundly wrong that Kenny, a genuine, caring, decent man is being forced to fight to obtain treatment he believes in, while also fighting this horrendous illness itself.

Simon Harris received plaudits for his role in the referendum on the Eighth Amendment, but a slick performance in a TV debate does not an effective Health Minister make.

He is aware of Kenny's case, having received several letters from him, as well as representations from politicians on his behalf. I believe meaningful action from the Minister could resolve this situation once and for all.

When the referendum result was announced, Minister Harris remarked: “Under the Eighth Amendment, we said to women in crisis take the boat or take the plane. Today we say take our hand.”

It's past time the Minister extended that hand to Kenny Tynan.