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Updated 22.50pm
WAITING LISTS FOR nursing homes are “spiralling out of control” ALONE has warned.
The charity, which supports older people in need, has condemned the fifteen week waiting lists currently facing applicants of the HSE’s Fair Deal Scheme.
Under the initiative, a person requiring nursing home care can make a contribution towards the cost while the State pays the balance.
The number of people on the Fair Deal waiting list has tripled from 654 in February to over 2,100 at present.
Last week, Health Minister Leo Varadkar told the Oireachtas Health Committee that “there may well be delays in the assessment”.
He added that “the real problem with the Fair Deal scheme is that it is budget-capped, which is in the legislation”.
It is not like medicines that have to be reimbursed or medical cards that happen to be issued if the person is entitled to them. The entitlement to the Fair Deal scheme is budget-capped, and when the budget runs out that is part of the big problem.
Sean Moynihan, Chief Executive Officer of ALONE, has called on the Government to act now before the situation gets any worse.
“The problem is really spiralling out of control, older people are being left in acute hospital beds or the responsibilities are being pushed back on families to care for them.
The Government needs to step in with a contingency plan, last week Varadkar alluded to the fact that the budget for this scheme has been used up for 2014, but this is simply not acceptable for the 2,100 older people on the waiting list.
Moynihan stated that the health service needs to set goals for reducing the waiting list for nursing home beds.
“There is too much focus on private nursing homes and public nursing homes are being neglected. From our point of view, community services and as much the answer as nursing home care – with increased local supports more older people would be able to live independently within their community.
“Studies have proven that remaining with the community is the preferred option for many older people and it’s far more economically viable,” he concluded.
Speaking to the media today, Varadkar said that some of the extra €25 million allocated to free up hospital beds occupied by patients ready to be discharged in 2015 will go towards the Fair Deal Scheme.
First published at 9.46am
I work on an acute ward and I’d say a good third of my patients are awaiting long term care. Not acceptable.
Care for them at home and create jobs, it’s better for the person oh and guess what cheaper,
Great idea, except there are some people who actually need to be in nursing homes because the care they require is specialized.
There are always exceptions…But the exceptions do not constitute the rule! 75% of the elderly would like to be cared for in their own homes. Some of their family members could be employed as their carers instead of staying on a dole… There are quite a lot of examples that the family members have been on a dole for a long time and their mothers or father have been placed in nursing homes… Why? Is it a culture of abandoning?
My work means I get to visit a lot of nursing homes.
Yes – there are some who may have been easy to care for at home – but they don’t have anyone.
Others – and this is actually the majority in my experience, require long term, focused care.
No one chooses the nursing home route unless they can afford it – they’re pricey.
Plus – not sure if you’re aware of this, but caring is an extremely demanding job, and this government offers little to no support to those caring for relatives at home. It’s 24/7/365, it’s a big all when your relative has become aggressive because of their dementia.
Big ask, damn this swipey keyboard!!
I am aware that caring is a demanding job and I know quite a few people who do it 24/7/365 as they feel it is their duty to look after (care for) their parents. Sometimes siblings share it when looking after their parents. It used to be a norm,a rule, now it is becoming an exception… Are elderly people happy to be cared for by strangers in a strange environment? Some of them (even demented) look out of the window all the time longing for their sons or daughters to come and making excuses for their not coming…It is sad…
Organisations like bluebird can take care of that for you
On the other hand, is it fair to expect untrained family members to bear the burden of care for what are often complex medical, cognitive and/or behavioural needs? There is a debate to be had here, particularly as community supports are highly inadequate/under-resourced and respite is almost non-existent.
I agree what is largely referred to here is focused, high support care. However it is not just the elderly who require this, and many places are taken/required by individuals with congenital or acquired disabilities as there are no other suitable alternatives available (at least not in sufficient numbers on a national level). No wonder the waiting lists are so long…
Andrzej (I hope I have spelled that correctly), I can see your point about people needing to have more respect for their elders and be willing to care for them – but I think you have made a little mistake in your assumption of our nursing homes.
They’re not retirement communities, nor are they old folks homes, they are *nursing* homes. They are long term living solutions for those in need of full time nursing care. The waiting lists prioritise people on need, and it’s a long waiting list.
Those wishing to “dump” their parents would need to be willing to stump up for a private home, and if they are that eager to get their parents off their hands then the parents might be better off in a nursing home. In my experience there’s a lot of really great carers out there, they really take the residents to their hearts, you can see how much the residents love them. That’s got to be better than being stuck in a house with a child who is so darn selfish that they treat you with resent for having to care for you.
This is what you get when you live in a ponzi scheme economy.
Over the course of an average person’s life, they should earn enough to completely support themselves.
That means they should be able to save all the money for retirement, health care, nursing homes and all the rest.
What we have instead is a system where people spend the vast majority of their income and working life inflating the property market and the state tells them they will pick up the tab for their other needs.
They then hope to pass these debts onto the next generation which they are so desperate to allow mass immigration as each subsequent generation needs to be larger than the last so the tax base is increased. Problem is, this is an unsusatinable model as you cannot increase the population in a finite space with finite resources forever.
There is a solution. House prices need to drop dramatically and people need to be able to use the saved income to support themselves.
gkrell, what is your reasoning based on in regards to the property market? If house prices dramatically fall they will get much less money from their property sale…which is often contributed towards the costs of care in nursing homes… I do not know how it works in Ireland though…
It’s only the start……
It appears that Leo has considerably less to say on this matter than he does about PPS numbers and Irish Water. Which is about what you would expect.
Recovery…good economic forecast…. I think it is time to put this Government and its corrupt system into a nursing home.
try having a mother in law in ireland alone, her kids live in the states, we have done the private home help, the government home help until she fell recently. CUH would not release her alone, so it took 9 weeks for us to get nursing home. Applied for fair deal, also loan for equity to pay nursing home but until then, we have to pay over 2K a month ; sibling refuses to help out, so it falls on my dh and myself to fly back and forth. My dh calls every other day and will go again in a few weeks. So we have basically tried everything. She is 85, has dementia, recovering from a broken hip and cries with the loneliness. It is such a sad case. We really have no option ; can’t move home as we would be unemployed and our kids still need to go to school, she can’t move here because of health reasons and no health insurance.
Don’t worry the doctor of spin will tell the truth because he is such a rebel. Leo get the finger out you are a disgrace
Why is it so bad for their families to look after them? I understand that in some circumstances it is not possible for the families to care for their relatives but sometimes it is just convenience… What did your parents bring you up for then putting lots of effort and money to do it? To educate the children etc. How is it going to be paid off?
I expected not to get any applause saying the above… In my opinion however, nursing homes should be a solution for some only…not for all due to convenience only… I know people who are visited in nursing homes once or twice a year or not at all by their families… Sometimes very rich ones… It is sad, isn’t it?
Can’t say I see much evidence of people dumped out of convenience. Most are there because they need a nurse to monitor them, or they wander a lot, or they’re aggressive, or any other number of things.
If a person is capable of getting by there are assisted living schemes too. It’s really not always possible to care for them at home and if there’s no good reason for them to be in a nursing home they most likely won’t get in given that there’s massive waiting lists everywhere and those with serious illness get priority.
I totally agree with you that it is not always possible to care for them at home. But if it is possible they should be cared for by their families. Just the family bonds and responsibility….
I worked for a few years with a lady whose child had profound learning disabilities. Believe me or not she never complained on the difficult situation she was in. Not even once! She had a better paid job so she stayed employed full time but her husband looked after the daughter sacrificing his professional carrier and worked part in a university. The daughter needed 24/7/365 care. They could adjust their life to the situation they were in. I talked to her about it a few times and she said that was their parental duty and they were happy to do it. I imagine it was hard for them at times but never heard any complaint from them. They just loved her.
In Ireland generally if you can care for them you’re going to have to whether you want to or not – the cost of care is prohibitively expensive for most, and the waiting lists are based on need (quite often they’re coming into the nursing home from an acute ward in a hospital where they’ve been waiting for several weeks).
Although – like I said above, if your kids are that eager to get rid of you, can you imagine how how horrible it would be to have to live with them? I’d take the nursing home over that.
My aunt (not in Ireland) spent over 10 years looking after my grandmother who had dementia. At the end she literally couldn’t leave the house since my granny would get extremely agitated if left on her own. It so happened that my aunt was made redundant in her fifties, and never got another job. Her child had married, and she was divorced, so she had no other commitments. So she just soldered on for 10 years. Let me tell you, I wouldn’t want a child of mine to make that sacrifice. It may seem proper to have a family looking after old people, but in reality looking after a bed bound demented person and changing their nappies for 10 years is not fair.
Have you ever worked in a Nursing Home ? I did and it scares me that towards the end of our lives we revert back to basically being babies, some people get lucky and are very active into their 90s and there are people who need 24 hour care constantly, it’s not as simple as letting someone look after at the home because most would not changed nappies or help them at toilet time or washing them or trying to feed them or putting them to bed or getting them up or having to constantly monitor them
Exactly Wynner. I think a lot of people have these preconceived notions of whst nursing homes are like, I know I did.. The truth is they’re not like you see on TV!
I can’t think of a single resident I have come into contact with who didn’t have a really good reason to need to be in a nursing home, and for most of them their kids would have been delighted to keep them at home, but when they can only be moved with a hoist and need things like blood pressure checks and a mountain of medicine – the home care route isn’t realistic.
Those who can manage to live at home, do. That’s what organisations like Home Instead are all about. We have got a care in the community option, it just needs some attention.
Honestly – you won’t get into a nursing home unless you actually need it.
Leo Varadker seems to be a bit preoccupied with Pps numbers for the water tax to be dealing with healthcare issues.
Leo it is one thing for you to say all the right things when interviewed now it is time for action
This list IS ALREADY OUT OF CONTROL!!
Hopefully when water charges are rolled out, the eur1.2 billion currently collected in VAT and motor tax for water services can be re-allocated towards health funding for critical needs like this.
Johngahan Any money that would have been collected would have gone to the troika so the 1.2 will be needed for the water system, perhaps we could have invested the money wasted on Irish Water in nursing homes.
debt & interest payments are already budgeted; they aren’t optional.
people want public services increased? people either need to pay tax to fund them, or the country reverses its debt reduction strategy and borrows more money or go we without services. it is a simple equation.
My cousin is a home care assistant for Comfort Keepers she loves it and gets loads of hours in her area. I know they are recruiting at the minute for people so there is jobs and demand out there and people wanting care at home.
That’s odd. I would have thought the waiting lists were getting smaller. I mean, they’re not getting any younger.
15wk wait?! My Grandad waited over 2yrs for nursing home placement and took up an acute bed in a hospital in the process. Need to fund for better primary services to keep people in their homes with care in place or else have a stepdown facility for people to stay in until nursing home bed becomes available therefore freeing up acute hospital beds. But like everything it comes down to funding….
have your say