Carers urge better home care supports

Basic supports to keep people with high dependency care needs at home must be provided before a patient is moved from hospital, the Carers Association is insisting.

In its pre-budget submission the association is urging the Government to recognise the home as a vital centre of care.

Their submission, Make Home Work, calls on the Government to ensure that family carers have the resources, services and supports necessary to care with confidence and safety in the home.

This year carers have been hit with changes to the housing adaptation grant for people with a disability as well as cuts to housing aid for older people and mobility aid grants.

They face further hardship as a result of increased household charges and a general lack of resources.

The association’s spokesperson, Catherine Cox, said they represented the interests of 187,000 people who were part of Ireland’s unseen workforce.

While they welcomed the Government’s shift in policy from hospital and institutional care to care in the community and home, this could not be achieved by simply “dumping” the burden of care on the shoulders of family carers.

“In the absence of a statutory entitlement to home care services the basic supports necessary to sustain people with high dependency care needs in the home must be provided prior to the movement of a patient from a hospital or institutional care to their homes,” said Ms Cox.

“Family Carers have played their part in facilitating this shift in policy and we are calling on the Irish Government to do the same,” she said.