€50m HSE funding for care provider ‘falls short’
Minister of State John Moloney announced €50m was to be provided by the HSE for Dublin-based St Michael’s House which provides services to more than 1,500 children and adults.
It has since emerged the €50m amounts to the voluntary organisation’s original tranche of money from the HSE for 2008 and still leaves the board short.
“Unless the money is increasing, we’re going backwards,” said St Michael’s House chief executive, Paul Ledwidge.
St Michael’s, which runs 160 community-based centres in the greater Dublin area and employs more than 1,650 staff, has the longest waiting list in the country and among the clients awaiting services are 16 homeless, disabled people whose parents have died.
Two weeks ago, the Irish Examiner revealed the plight of some of the service’s patients, such as a 50-year-old mentally disabled woman whose parents are in their 80s and unable to care for her at home; and a boy with Down’s Syndrome who has relied on facilities co-ordinated by St Michael’s.
Mr Moloney’s announcement would only cover residential places for 10 of the homeless people who need a permanent place to live, according to Mr Ledwidge.
Meanwhile, there’s funding for 15 daycare places but 87 people in need of such facilities with St Michael’s House; 170 clients whose parents are in their 70s and 55 whose parents are in their 80s. “These people are still looking after their son or daughter at home. I know between 15 and 20 parents will die within a year and if we’re not getting around 15 or 20 residential places, then we’re in trouble.”
Maternity hospitals which currently refer babies born with special needs, such as those with Down’s syndrome, may still be told there’s nothing that St Michael’s can do because of the budget shortfall.
The €50m will allow the organisation to “survive”, but nothing more.
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