We should support home help services

The recent announcement by the HSE that the personal assistant and home help packages were to be seriously cut back was a disgraceful decision, but also a huge wake up call to all of us.

It is a relief that some of the personal assistant support is being reinstated after protests outside the Dáil by people with serious disabilities, their families and supporters embarrassed the Government into action.

But that’s not enough; the home care packages also need to be reinstated in full so that thousands of elderly people, the most vulnerable in society, can live with some measure of dignity. Numerous stories have been aired on this issue highlighting the need for every single hour of home help support to be maintained.

Even at a budgetary level forcing community services into an impossible straight jacket, cutting home help hours, attacking personal assistant supports is still wrong. All it does is force people out of their own homes and into the hospitals that are already at breaking point. The elderly and vulnerable that get sicker as a result of these cutbacks, or simply can’t manage because of the withdrawal of their home help support, will ultimately need to be treated at far higher cost to the Exchequer, in hospitals and nursing homes. Where is the common sense in that?

At every level it makes more sense to invest in home help support and provide dignity to those who, in their later years of life, find themselves at the mercy of the State. We cannot and must not fail them.

Joe Kelly

Hillview

Waterford City