A 92-year-old woman languishing in a hospital for almost a
year because there no funding for a home care package shows how the system is
failing older people, Alone said yesterday.
The charity that supports older people to age at home has
called on the Government to increase home help hours in line with demand.
Alone chief executive, Sean Moynihan, said the number of
home help hours had been cut by 1.58m since 2010, but over that time, the
number of older people in the state had increased by 18%.
The elderly woman, who broke her pelvis, has been cleared by
her doctors to go home but they did not want to discharge her until a home care
package was in place.
“This case is a clear example of how the system is failing
our older people,” said Mr Moynihan.
The woman from South Mayo has been a patient at Mayo
University Hospital for almost 300 days. Her home care package has been
approved, but there is no funding available.
The HSE said the Galway, Mayo and Roscommon area had been
providing home care supports “in excess of the funded levels of service.”
The health authority said it was now required to bring the
level of service and expenditure back “into equilibrium” with allocated
budgets.
Mr Moynihan said it made economic sense to provide the
elderly woman with the home help she needed.
“A home care package would only cost around €400 a week
while keeping this lady in hospital, taking up an acute bed, is costing €7,000
a week,” he said.
The HSE said all home care applications are considered by
the Home Care Fora, which included representatives from older people services
and nursing.
“The allocation of care is focussed on prioritised cases
within available resources,” it pointed out.
The woman’s daughter, who does not want to be identified,
said because she was working, she would have to get a loan to pay around €600 a
week for a private nurse to care for her mother. She said her mother was
receiving the best of care at the hospital, but all she wanted was to be in her
home again, and was finding it difficult to keep her spirits up.
Independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne blamed “pure
Leprechaun economics” for the elderly woman’s plight.
“How far are we away from the point where the hospital
budget is spent, and people who are dying are left outside,” he asked.
“I am appalled that this is happening in the Taoiseach’s
constituency, and there is no public outcry about it.
“This woman wants to go home. This is terrible,
unbelievable. We have four TDs in Mayo and five senators. Of the four TDs, two
are in government, and the other two are supporting that government. I am also
saying to Fianna Fáil TDs in this constituency — have they confidence in the
kind of government that is allowing this to happen?”
SOURCE:Irish Examiner, Evelyn Ring
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