Nursing homes and home help

A chara, – The percentage of our elderly population in nursing homes is 35 per cent greater than the EU average.

In recent years, the HSE has adopted a policy of increasingly funding nursing home places for older people. However, juxtaposed to this has been the systematic reduction in the funding of home care supports for older patients who wish to remain living at home, but who just need some additional home help to do so. This has led to a situation whereby older people are preferentially being pushed into nursing homes at huge cost to the HSE and, more importantly, at huge cost and anxiety to the patient.

Nursing homes play a vital role in the Irish health system and most older people enjoy their time at nursing homes; however, as a doctor in the HSE, it has been my experience that the vast majority of my elderly patients have a deep desire to live at home for as long as they can. I fundamentally believe that if a patient wishes to remain at home, the HSE should provide the adequate resources needed to facilitate this for as long as possible.

Despite the Programme for Government and the HSE service plan all claiming that helping older people to live independently at home for as long as possible is a major cornerstone of their healthcare policy, their patterns of funding paint a very different picture. Funding for home help has been cut by €1.6 million since 2011 and housing adaptation grants for older people have been cut by almost €30 million. Meanwhile Minister for Health Leo Varadkar recently announced another further €44 million in additional funding for the Fair Deal programme.

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We need to correct this imbalance of funding and reallocate some of the money invested in the Fair Deal programme into providing home supports to older patients, thereby ensuring that nursing home care is a last resort rather than their only choice. – Is mise,

Dr DAVID J TANSEY,

Mater Misericordiae

University Hospital,

Dublin 7.