Parents warned of cutbacks as charity bridging fund refused

THE PARENTS of hundreds of babies with severe developmental delay and brain damage are being warned that their home care and respite services are to be cut and that their babies may have to return to hospital.

Letters to parents across the State were sent over the weekend following the decision by the Health Service Executive not to bridge a €750,000 funding shortfall to the Jack and Jill Foundation.

Their return to hospital will cost the State more than €14 million, according to chief executive of the foundation Jonathan Irwin.

The charity had been in talks with Minister of State for disability John Moloney and his officials about the funding issue. A decision had been deferred but the foundation heard at the weekend no extra money would be allocated.

Jack and Jill provides frontline home care and respite services to 320 families of children who are born with or develop brain damage and who suffer from severe intellectual and physical developmental delay.

It raises more than 80 per cent of its own funds but is experiencing a shortfall of €450,000 this year due to a 40 per cent increase in family payments and support over the past two years and a 25 per cent decrease in donations.

Although it usually provides services only to children up to age four, the charity’s nursing team also has requests for home care for 81 children now over that age. Meeting their needs until they can be handed on to the HSE will cost €250,000. Unless its annual grant of €556,000 was increased next year to €1.35 million, Mr Irwin said intensive home services would have to be cut by one-third from January 1st.

In the letter to parents, the foundation says: “Today with the last of our reserves running out and our donations significantly down, the refusal of the HSE to give us more funding leaves us with no alternative but to cut our home nursing care and respite service by up to 30 per cent from 1st January 2011.”

Mr Irwin said yesterday he estimated up to 100 babies faced return to hospital in the short to medium term.

“It is devastating for these families and so frustrating for us as it make absolutely no economic sense to refuse us this funding.”

“While it costs Jack and Jill €16,500 a year for each baby for home care, the cost to the State to care for a baby in hospital was an average of €146,000.”

The foundation has sent questionnaires to all its parents asking them to assess how vulnerable their child is and whether he or she should be on the register of the “most vulnerable”. It is also continuing its public appeal for donations and old mobile phones, which can be sold on for recycling.