Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to bring a particular case to the attention of the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, the Department of Health and the HSE. I know of a situation where a member of a family became seriously in February this year. The family looked for care to be provided two or three nights a week. Three nights were allocated because family members were travelling long distances from where they were living to provide the care, day and night, for the person who is ill. The family got a commitment in writing from the HSE to the provision of care three nights per week, but that approval was subsequently withdrawn. It is completely unacceptable that this should happen to families that are trying to make the right decisions for their loved ones. A little bit of help from the State can go a long way for people in this situation.

Public health nurses right across the region have contacted me to say how frustrating it is for them to do an assessment and make a recommendation for home help hours for patients who they clearly see need that service, only for the application to go back into the system and the outcome to be that no service is provided. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, indicated that a cross-departmental working group has been established to examine this issue. Data should be available from within the service as to whether all staff are satisfied with the hours they are getting and whether there is any extra capacity. The first thing on everybody's mind must be to try to keep people in their homes for as long as possible. That is best for everyone.

The reality is that the service locally is grinding to a halt. The Minister indicated that the working group will bring forward recommendations by September, but that is some three months away and we will be facing into winter by then. There should be an urgency applied to this matter. The problems in the service have been ticking along for some time. As I said, in the case of the family to which I referred, the provision of three nights was approved in February before being withdrawn completely at the end of March without ever having been provided. This is totally unacceptable. We need to see a real urgency to address this issue because it will become a major problem over the coming weeks and months.

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