A carer who washed his parents' clothes and bedding by hand several times weekly because a health board refused him a washing machine grant has been paid £1,000 following intervention by the Ombudsman.
The case was an example of "the unfeeling reaction" families sometimes got from bureaucracies, the Ombudsman, Mr Kevin Murphy, said at the launch of his annual report.
Mr Murphy also complained yesterday at delays in introducing legislation to enable him to investigate complaints against public voluntary hospitals.
The carer was a single man in the North Western Health Board area who cared alone for his ill and elderly parents. His parents were unable to use a bath but the health board refused him a grant for a shower. It also refused him help with the purchase of a washing machine. After his mother died the board refused him help with the funeral expenses because he had already paid the bill with money borrowed from his brother.
He was upset when his mother was sent an outpatient hospital appointment four months after she died. He also complained that his mother, in his view, had not received proper care and treatment while in Letterkenny General Hospital or following her discharge from the hospital. The health board later apologised for the treatment of his mother.
But, notes Mr Murphy in his report, "there was no acknowledgement of the cumulative effect on the complainant of all the problems encountered or of the time and trouble involved in his pursuing these matters."
After Mr Murphy intervened, the North Western Health Board offered the man £600. It was only after he refused the amount and Mr Murphy intervened again that he was offered £1,000.
"Large organisations never put themselves in the boots of the person," Mr Murphy commented. He referred to people being told in an insensitive way by hospital staff that their aged parents were dying. "Nurses and doctors are so used to dealing with these sort of things day after day they forget it's a one-off experience for the person."
The large public voluntary hospitals were not within his jurisdiction, even though the Programme for Government provided for this, he said. "We have seen so many drafts going on but it never seems to get to the top of the list," he said, adding that the Minister of State, Mr Martin Cullen, had announced the legislation on at least two occasions.