Care plan for disabled people ‘must be provided’

HEALTH service providers have a responsibility to put in place a long-term care plan for disabled people to spare elderly parents the “terrifying prospect” that there will be no place for them to go, it was claimed yesterday.

The national association for people with an intellectual disability (NAMHI) said funding should be linked to a person, rather than a service, to ensure full care was provided if the person’s family becomes ill or passes away.

“Why are they terrifying elderly people by telling them there are no resources and putting them in a position of fear?” NAMHI general secretary Deirdre Carroll asked.

She was commenting following the Irish Examiner’s article highlighting the plight of Helen Collender, a 73-year-old woman from Co Waterford.

Mrs Collender has spent 30 years pleading with the health services to re-assure her that a place will be available for her profoundly disabled son Vincent, 34, when she dies. “It’s absolutely criminal that an elderly woman with a severe to profoundly disabled son is being told by a social worker that there’s no money there for you,” Ms Carroll said.

“Respite care should be given so that the family can acclimatise to it and, in the event of the family getting ill or passing away, they will know there is somewhere for him to go,” she said.

Vincent Collender receives daycare at a Brother of Charity centre in Waterford, but no guarantee has been made by the South Eastern Health Board that there will be a full-time residential place for him when his elderly parents pass away.

NAMHI said the rights announced under the Disability Bill 2004, including the right to an independent assessment of need and a review of resource availability, should include a plan “for priority need” for all disabled persons. “All people with intellectual disabilities should have a long-term plan. They need to be re-assessed and a programme put in place if and when they need it,” she said.

“It’s not good enough to say ‘we don’t have enough money’ for people like this in this day and age,” she remarked.

Meanwhile, the South Eastern Health Board refused to comment on the situation regarding care for Mr Collender. A spokesperson confirmed that an “emergency care plan” is used to care for all disabled persons in the event of family illness or death.