Caution against home help cuts

HSE SOUTH:COUNCILLORS AT yesterday's HSE South regional forum raised concerns about cutbacks in home help and personal assistant services, with Kilkenny GP Cllr Patrick Crowley warning that such moves could prove counterproductive.

HSE South regional director Pat Healy yesterday revealed that expenditure at the end of July was at €958 million – €49 million above its planned target for the month.

However, he expressed confidence that the figures for August, which would include a number of seasonal adjustments including theatre closures and staff holidays, would see that figure of €49 million reduced by €6 million.

Dr Crowley said the best way to ensure that older and more vulnerable people with disabilities did not end up being admitted to hospitals or institutions was to provide home help and personal assistance services, and such services offered excellent value for money.

Cork Workers’ Party councillor Ted Tynan instanced two cases from Cork – a 44-year-old woman wheelchair-bound from birth who was having her home help hours cut from 30 to 20 and an 84-year-old man whose home help hours were being cut from seven to five. In both cases the recipient was both mentally capable and anxious to continue to live in the community, but the removal of these home help hours would severely affect them, said Mr Tynan. He described the move to cut their hours as “appalling”.

However, Mr Healy said that across the whole HSE South area there were no plans to cut the total number of home help hours being offered to some 15,990 clients, with 2.1 million hours provided to the end of July and the end of year figure set to hit 3.6 million hours.

There were some regional variations, however, with more hours being provided in Cork than were targeted for.

But in South Tipperary, Carlow/Kilkenny and Kerry, the number of home help hours was under the target figure and there was no one in Kerry waiting for home help hours.

Within Cork, there had been a restructuring and while the number of hours being offered had been reduced in the cases of up to 1,000 clients, a further 460 new clients had been added and a further 263 were being assessed for home help assistance, Mr Healy said.