Home support hours shortage
Deputy McGrath challenges the gap between promised and delivered home support hours and says families are being left waiting. The Taoiseach disputes the local figures, notes reduced waiting lists overall, and says the main challenge is recruiting enough skilled home-care workers.
I have a question for the Taoiseach about a reply I received today to a parliamentary question regarding the winter plan. The winter plan promises 23.62 million home support hours, but the HSE is currently only delivering 11.4 million. This is chronic. To refer to the last question, the hospitals will be full while people cannot get home support. As it faces into the winter plan, at what point is the HSE going to be upfront and deliver this? There are 2,156 people across the country waiting for new or additional home help hours, and 894 are in County Tipperary. Families and carers are getting sick and if that is not dealt with, the hospitals crisis will be much worse. Hospitals are already overcrowded, so what is the point of producing figures if the HSE is not going to deliver? It is very frustrating for people trying to ring and beg and scrounge to get home help hours. Then they are getting sick when they do not have any supports.
Comment on this
I am surprised the Deputy is raising that issue. I am informed that nobody in south Tipperary is waiting for home help hours as of the end of August.
If the Deputy talks to the Minister of State, Deputy Butler-----
Comment on this
These figures came from the HSE this morning.
Comment on this
One of the issues facing the sector is getting enough skilled workers into the home care sector. That is our biggest challenge now. More than €5 million was allocated last year which has had a dramatic impact on reducing the waiting times and also had an impact on the flow through hospitals. The issue will be getting personnel to work in the sector.