THE COST of clearing the backlog of those on an Alzheimer’s charity’s waiting list will cost the State €4.7 million while doing nothing will cost more than 2½ times that amount, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

The Alzheimer Society of Ireland estimates that, if additional funding is not provided to clear its waiting list of just under 1,000 people, 30 per cent of these would suffer “caregiver burnout”.

This would lead to 300 people with dementia being admitted to long-term care or repeat admissions to AE or acute care, with a cost to the State of €12 million.

Chief executive of the society, Maurice O’Connell told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children that dementia should be designated as a national health priority and that a national strategy should be developed. He said further cuts to the society’s funding in the 2011 budget would lead to direct cuts to services and job losses which would ultimately cost the State more. This would also impact on the organisation’s ability to fund raise – currently a 23 per cent return on HSE spending and on its ability to use trained and vetted volunteers.

Chair of the committee Seán Ó Fearghaíl of Fianna Fáil said the society was “right to challenge us” in relation to potential cuts in the upcoming budget. “I think you put it to us that we must decide what must be protected . . . I would say the way to approach this is to identify essential services such as yours and say, ‘well, we want to protect these and work back from there’.”

Mr Ó Fearghaíl noted that the cost of treating dementia patients in the community was small when compared with the relative cost of treating people in long-term care.

He said the society had the committee’s unanimous support for a national dementia strategy, an implementation plan for which should be developed by 2013. A second presentation given to the committee yesterday by the Neurological Alliance of Ireland warned that, given Ireland’s ageing population, the numbers living with neurological conditions will rise from 700,000 to 860,000 in the next 10 years, with a 50 per cent increase in stroke incidence by 2021.

Development manager of the alliance, Magdalen Rogers called for the HSE service plan for 2011 to: protect clinical programmes in neurology, stroke and epilepsy services; to secure the implementation of the national rehabilitation programme strategy for 2011 and for non-statutory organisations providing supports in this area to be protected from further cuts.