Palliative care services need funding and beds

THE Taoiseach was very timely with his call for a “a great national conversation” on what it means to be Irish and with his references to our steadfast values and a sense of duty and community.

The Irish Hospice Society recently launched a major report on palliative care services in Ireland.

It highlighted massive gaps in these services for the dying and called for the provision of inpatient hospices in the midlands, north-east and south-east.

In the same week, a five-year palliative care plan in the south-east highlighted the critical need for an immediate investment of e6 million to bring palliative care services there up to a ‘minimum level’.

It called for the immediate provision of six designated palliative care beds at Waterford Regional Hospital, in a region that has no hospice.

The regional Health Service Executive in the south-east has no funding at present to provide even a minimum level of care for dying patients.

Never has the need for the Government to lead the way regarding ‘duty’ and ‘community’ been so great as it is right now.

Jane Bailey

Circular Road

Dunmore East

Co Waterford