Home care cuts sees ‘off-loading of patients into hospitals’
Dr Mark Doyle, who is president of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine, said a situation had arisen in the south east whereby no new home care packages would be made available to patients this year due to financial constraints. He said they only became aware of this when difficulties arose trying to secure home care packages for patients in the Wexford area.
“We weren’t even told that it was happening. We discovered when we were trying to get patients into rehab beds in Wexford.
“We were told they weren’t available and when we tried to find out why, it was because patients couldn’t get out of rehab beds to get home because the home care packages had been pulled.”
Speaking to RTÉ Radio’s Drivetime programme, Dr Doyle said the decision appeared to have been taken without consideration for the knock-on effect it would have on the acute hospital or without reference to the fact that it’s cheaper to care for people at home.
“So supposedly to be doing something for economic reasons that might benefit the bottom line for one sector of the service, but actually creating increased cost in another part of the service, doesn’t make any sense.”
Moreover, keeping patients in hospital meant delayed discharges, less availability of beds, and ultimately, emergency department overcrowding.
Dr Doyle said they had sought meetings with the community sector around a number of issues, and had found “the level of engagement isn’t what it should be”.
“We are certainly open to having meetings to discuss how best to utilise the resources that are available, but certainly, off-loading responsibility to look after patients in their own homes and in the community by putting the onus back on acute hospitals — which are already struggling to maintain patient flow — is not a sensible way to go”.
The HSE issued a statement denying there had been a “total” cessation of home care packages for the rest of the year, saying there was a need “for prudent management within the allocation of available funds”. The HSE said packages and home help hours “continue to be provided throughout the south east” and that this year, the south east community health organisation plans to implement “up to 900 home care packages and 1,219,000 home help hours”.
The statement said: “Help services continue to be allocated to new clients having regard to the resources that become available through existing clients no longer requiring their home care service, and importantly, taking account of the overall resources available for the home care service”.
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