Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will speak about some of the difficulties that people are having in accessing home care supports in west Cork, but in doing that I must first acknowledge the incredible work being done in this whole area by the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, since she became the Minister of State. Year on year the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, has secured and allocated more funding for home care supports, and has done more than any other Minister previously in securing that level of support. The Minister of State began the process and has revolutionised nursing home care and I know she will do the same for home care. That said, the Minister of State has also acknowledged the unprecedented level of demand for home care support services in the State. The Minister of State has acknowledged this and it is what I want to speak about today.

It is surely time that the HSE becomes accountable for this and that it starts showing some results and some value for money for the money and the funding that the Minister of State has secured for the sector. This applies right throughout the healthcare sector. The HSE and the management structures within the HSE need to start showing that value for money and return for taxpayers' funding that goes into that service. For example, in 2019 the funding for the HSE was some €16 billion. This has increased to €23 billion. It is about a 40% increase yet we are not seeing that value for money and we are not seeing the return in increased services. This has certainly played out in previous weeks. I am aware that we have had unprecedented levels of viruses, which has also been the situation throughout Europe but we have seen situations here where we have had record numbers of people on trolleys and people awaiting care.

The whole point of home help, home support and home care is to take people, elderly people, and dependent patients, out of those acute services. It underlines the importance of a functioning home support service. Far too often, unfortunately, and certainly in my area in west Cork, that is not the case. There are numerous examples I could give to the Minister of State but I will focus on one example. I thank the family that has given me permission to give it as an example. I will not use the names. The man has dementia, stage IV cancer, and Parkinson's disease. A good few months ago back in September he fell and broke his hip. He went to the hospital and was operated on. He was ready to be discharged from hospital a number of weeks later but he could not be discharged because the level of required home support services was not there to assist him. The requirement was that he would have two home carers in the morning, two in the afternoon, and two in the evening. The best that he could be offered at the time when the HSE went out to tender for it, was 2 a.m. or 1 p.m. This was very quickly withdrawn because one of the home care workers was no longer available. The HSE, of course, gave the response that there were issues with recruitment and issues with securing staff. While this may very well be the case, the upshot is that a family wanted to bring their father and family member home and spend time with him - however long that gentleman has left - and they wanted to spend as much time with him at home as possible. They could not do it because the appropriate level of home care and home supports services was not there. We need to see that change. The Minister of State has put the funding in place. She has resourced it and the HSE now needs to step up to the mark to ensure that this level of support is provided for families who desperately, desperately need it.

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