PARENTS who need residential care for multiply handicapped teenagers or adults in the Limerick area could face almost a 10 year wait at the present rate of funding.
According to a documentary, to be shown on RTE 1 tonight, 251 mentally handicapped people in the mid west region have no services. Many also have one or more physical handicaps. In all, 174 need permanent or temporary residential care and 77 need day care.
Parents who need care for their children include an elderly man caring for his wife, who has Alzheimer's Disease, and for his mentally handicapped adult son. They also include a woman with a teenage son who reacts violently if any demand is denied.
The programme, When Happiness is a Place for your Child, is highly critical of politicians and of professionals, especially doctors.
A considerable amount of money has been put into mental handicap services in recent years but this is greatly outstripped by needs, especially for residential services.
In the mid west region last year, the extra money funded 22 extra residential and 44 day care places. At that rate it would take eight years for all those in need of residential care to receive ft with new people always joining the waiting lists.
One woman tells how her son was dropped from a promising course of residential therapy because of lack of funding. In the institution which he now attends, she was once told during a funding delay that if the cheque was not there by Friday he would have to leave.
While parents are scathing about what they see as the failure of politicians to provide sufficient services, they are also critical of doctors and other professionals.
Professionals give parents little or no information about how to cope with a mentally handicapped child or about the services available, say parents on the programme. "I just did not know what was available to her because nobody told me", says one parent.
Another whose child has a rare condition says she had to contact doctors in Ireland and abroad to get a list of suitable drugs for her child she eventually found a doctor in The Netherlands who could help.
The sheer effort which parents have to put into getting services is also criticised. "It's never one phone call, you always have to make at least 10 to 12 calls to get people on the move", says another parent.