Cavan-Monaghan TD Pauline Tully called out the government for not having yet implemented the statutory home support scheme promised by them in the Programme for Government. Speaking on a recent motion on Homecare the Sinn Féin spokesperson on Disability and Carers called on the government to reverse their lack of work in this area and get the statutory home support scheme delivered without any further delay.
Speaking to Northern Sound, Deputy Tully said; "The government, it seems, has thrown in the towel on the commitment it gave in the Programme for Government to implement a statutory home support scheme over its term of Government. It appears very unlikely at this stage, unfortunately, that a statutory home support scheme will be delivered within this timeframe. This is an utter failure by the government.
"This failure is pushing older people and disabled people into hospitals, nursing homes and early admission to long term residential care when they should be cared for in their own home. This was highlighted by the ombudsman in the report 'Wasted Lives' which stated that the implementation of this scheme is necessary to address the current bias in favour of placing people in institutional settings.
"As of June, there were 6,020 people on a waiting lists for a homecare, 3,075 seeking new care and 2,945 looking for additional hours. During this period 484 people were experiencing a delayed transfer of care from the acute system, 74 of these were waiting to be transferred home. Of these, 12 had submitted their application for their Home Support Package (HSP) but were waiting for funding while 42 others had their funding approved but were waiting on carer availability.
"It is now inevitable that this crisis will only get worse as the HSE have included homecare staff in its recruitment freeze. They ignored warnings from the HSE and the Department of Health that the budget for 2023 and 2024 does not cover the true cost of running the HSE. There must be a reversal of this decision and we must see an increase in the funding allocation for the Health Service. The government must urgently bring forward a supplementary budget to reverse this recruitment freeze."
