St Joseph's Shankill funding
Deputy Brady raised the planned closure of St. Joseph's Shankill day care and later pressed for continued funding. The Minister said the doors would not close and that the HSE was actively trying to agree additional funding.
Earlier this week, St. Joseph's Shankill, a dedicated care home for people with dementia, made a decision to send a letter to the 150 people living with dementia who use this excellent facility, 600 family members, 100 staff and 100 volunteers advising them that from December this year they will have to stop the day care service. From next year, it will cease operation in full due to gross underfunding. The Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, is familiar with this excellent facility. Many of those who work and use the facility are from his constituency of Wicklow.
What will the Minister do to ensure the doors of this excellent facility remain open? Currently, in Ireland there are 55,000 people living with dementia and this figure is estimated to double over the next 20 years. We need to ensure that facilities like this remain open. What is the Minister doing to ensure that funding is forthcoming so the doors can remain open?
Comment on this
The Minister met representatives of the facility last year and he told them that funding was forthcoming. We are now two months away from the closure of the day care facility. Can the Minister ensure that funding is forthcoming and that the facility will remain open into the future?
Comment on this
The doors will not close. The manner in which this issue is being handled is very unedifying because letters went to patients and the families of vulnerable patients before any letter was issued to the HSE. Like Deputy Brady, I know St. Joseph's very well. It is a superb facility with incredible staff. I know many of its residents and their families personally.
There are two parts to the facility. The day care centre is funded by the HSE. As we speak, the HSE is intensively engaging to try to agree additional funding to keep it open. The second part is a residential facility, the price for which is negotiated through the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, in respect of which there is also a mechanism in place. This facility will not close. The way to resolve the issue is to engage intensively. I hope that engagement can take place productively and constructively, rather than in the worrying way it is being conveyed through the media. St. Joseph's is a brilliant facility. It needs to be supported and it will be supported and remain open.