Inadequate funding is severely affecting the provision of community-based services for older people, leading to long waiting lists and a total absence of services in some parts, a survey has found.
The survey, released today by the Irish Association of Social Workers and Age Action, assessed the provision of home care packages and home help services which are aimed at enabling older people requiring low to medium care to remain living in their own homes.
It found that home help service was available in just one of 22 HSE-designated health areas surveyed and that home help hours had been cut in four areas and there were waiting lists in 16 areas.
The survey also showed that no funding was available for new home care packages in eight of the 20 areas surveyed.
In seven areas, older people were forced into waiting for existing home care recipients to die or go into long term care before they could access home care packages.
The survey, which was conducted earlier this month through information gathered by social workers and other health professionals, found that up to last week there was no further funding available for home care packages in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin South City, Dublin West, Kildare-West Wicklow, North Dublin and Wexford.
In addition, there were waiting lists for packages in Dublin South East and Wicklow, while the scheme was being reduced in Dublin West and Kildare-West Wicklow.
It found found that the current embargo on recruitment in the Health Service Executive had affected the provision of home helps in Donegal, Dun Laoghaire, Cavan-Monaghan, Galway, Sligo-Leitrim, North Tipperary/East Limerick and Kerry.
In Dublin South East there is no weekend cover for home helps, it said.
In Tallaght home help is capped at five hours per week when the recipient lives with another person, and seven hours per week in exceptional circumstances when they live alone, it said.
Age Action spokesman Eamon Timmins said: “It is unacceptable that an older person living in Kildare-West Wicklow could be denied these supports because the lack of local resources, yet a person with identical needs living in Mayo could receive the services they need”.
Mr Timmins cited one case in which a woman of 90 was told she would have to wait three years for a home care package. He said the waiting lists were in many areas “merely camouflaging” the absence of any services.
Chairman of the Irish Association of Social Workers Special Interest Group on Ageing John Brennan said: “Month by month it seems to be getting worse,”
Mr Brennan said: “People who already have a service are now under pressure in different areas to reduce that service. That means that people who otherwise could have lived at home will now be pushed into long term care.
“In doing so they will be pushed into the acute hospital system which is already in trouble, because that is the only way to access a public long term care bed,” he said.
