ELDERLY people will be forced to pay weekly fees averaging almost €900 for nursing home care while waiting for entry approval to the state’s nursing home support scheme (NHSS) following a change in the way it operates.

AGE ACTION believes the ESB Electric Ireland’s insistence on customers actively requesting that they be put on the new lower rates potentially excludes frail older people as well as those people with disabilities.

THE era of the familydoctor making out-of-hours house calls could become a thing of the past because of a halving of the fee paid to GPs to make the trip, doctors warned at the weekend.

ELDERLY and disabled patients will no longer be provided with essential aids such as toilet frames, bed pans, commodes and drip stands in what has been described as a “new low” in crippling health cutbacks.

THE HSE has denied it is forcing future public nursing home residents to pay almost 20 times more for their care than those in the system, after a leading lobby group said any possibility of the move was “unjustifiable”.

THE Department of Social and Family Affairs discovered only last week that a laptop stolen 16 months ago contained information of more than 380,000 people entitled to social welfare payments.

Age Action Ireland is welcoming the removal of the upper age limit for eligibility to sit on a jury.

LOBBY group Age Action is shocked and disappointed that the Department of Health has clawed back a huge chunk of money allocated to a new nursing home funding scheme.

TWO significant changes to the entitlements of old age pensioners come into force this week but they need to be followed up with more substantial reforms in the sector, according to Age Action Ireland.

The Government is being urged to ensure as many elderly people as possible have access to a bus or train.

CONSUMER champions and pensioners’ groups last night criticised Bord Gáis for announcing price rises of €50 per bill from October — a hike of 33.8%.

A man witnessed flashes of light and a car screeching away as a father-of-ten was gunned down on a Dublin street corner, an inquest heard today.

Is it fair grandparents have to share the burden of childcare? Mark Evans reports.

ALMOST a quarter of private nursing homes in the same area as the controversial Leas Cross nursing home are not up to standard.

AN outdated and expensive legal system designed to protect vulnerable elderly people should be scrapped and replaced with a new, more flexible public guardian’s office, law reformers said yesterday.

ORGANISATIONS caring for elderly people have warned that proposed industrial action by public health nurses could have serious consequences for thousands of already vulnerable people.