Subvention schemeThe Western Health Board (WHB) plans to put a pilot home-based subvention scheme into place towards the end of this year in an effort to keep older people in their own homes for as long as possible.
The development has been warmly welcomed by members of the WHB who have been calling for such a scheme for a number of years. Health board chief executive officer Dr Sheelah Ryan said every board was planning its own pilot home-based subvention scheme and the WHB had scheduled the start of its scheme for the second half of this year.
Michael Rowland of the health board said that although the details of the payments had not been worked out yet, it was likely that older people would be funded directly to pay for their own care. Under the current Nursing Home Subvention Scheme, funding is provided to the carers only.
Councillor Des Bruen said the members of the board had been promoting the idea of a home- based subvention scheme for years because it was a very efficient way of allowing people to remain in their homes rather then going into an institution.
Councillor Tim Quinn pointed out that dealing with Ireland's increasingly ageing population would be a major challenge for the health service in the coming years, particularly in the West.
He said that people were taking up hospital beds because they were not fit to go home and there was no room for them in the board's nursing home facilities.
"Why should people have to travel 60 miles from their home to a nursing home? We need to be proactive in relation to long-term planning for the elderly," Mr Quinn said.
The review of the Nursing Home Subvention Scheme carried out by Prof Eamonn O'Shea of NUI Galway, which was commissioned by the Departments of Health and Finance, recommends a bias towards homecare solutions while retaining a capacity for financing care in institutional settings.
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