Fair Deal scheme: Home help a necessity, not a choice

PLANS to extend the Fair Deal scheme to allow older people be cared for in their own homes suggests that the Government has finally woken up to the blindingly obvious: home care is better, easier, more compassionate and, in fact, cheaper than the alternative of nursing homes or hospitals.

As Seán Moynihan, chief executive of the charity Alone, pointed out recently, home care packages cost in the region of €400 a week whereas keeping someone in an acute hospital bed costs €7,000, almost 20 times more.

He was commenting on the plight of a 92-year-old woman from Mayo who had recovered from a broken pelvis but had to be kept in hospital for almost a year because, although her home care package had been approved, there was no funding for it due to HSE cuts.