HSE targets the elderly - No country for old men and women

IRELAND is no place to be ill — especially if you’re elderly.

However dysfunctional the health service seemed in recent years, it is bound to deteriorate further under the HSE national plan for 2012 unveiled yesterday.

While the plan has received the stamp of approval from Health Minister James Reilly, it is hard to find positive news in a document that talks of cuts on virtually every page.

Predictably, frontline services will feel the greatest impact. With 3,300 more staff leaving the service by next month, the exodus will have negative repercussions for hospital services, something the service plan admits will be impossible to avoid. On average, hospital budgets will be cut by 4.4%, while “activity levels” will fall by around 6%.

Controversially, with pensioners already feeling the brunt of Government cost cutting measures, the HSE expects to shut down at least 555 public beds for elderly people in community nursing homes. To offset such a heavy loss of community beds, there will be even greater emphasis on diverting older people to private nursing homes, a move likely to prove unpopular.

Despite having a budget of over €1 billion for the “Fair Deal” nursing home support scheme, the HSE warns that this service may run out of funds before year end. Under the system, which applies whether a nursing home is public, private or voluntary, people availing of the scheme must pay towards their long-term care while the state meets the balance.

It remains to be seen how many elderly people will be affected if the HSE runs out of funds. No crystal ball is required to foretell that the very people the scheme is supposed to benefit will be hardest hit by a funding shortfall. Adding to their woes, home help hours for older people will be cut by 4.5%.

The plan goes on to say that on top of budget cuts of €1.7bn in the past two years, the HSE’s overall budget this year will be slashed by a further €750 million. Compounding this situation, the use of agency staff will be halved. Against this dark backdrop, it is hard to see how the HSE can deliver on its commendable goal that no patient should wait longer than nine months for a planned operation.

On a brighter note, the mental health services will get an extra 400 staff, something TDs have long been demanding. There will also be funding for more medical cards and to replace primary posts. Regrettably, the disability service budget will be cut by 3.7%.

Presumably, with such negative portents coming from the HSE’s own mouth, the object of yesterday’s exercise was to put all the bad news on the table at once rather than being forced to defend the organisation against damaging stories in the coming months. If anything, the HSE is adopting a reverse form of public relations to condition the public for cutbacks across the health service during the lifetime of the HSE plan.

It is unacceptable that older people, already being hit by the austerity programme, are again being targeted by the HSE. This flies in the face of Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s pre-election pledge that under his governance, Ireland would be a country where older people would be able to live out their lives with dignity.