Clare Sinn Féin TD Donna McGettigan has said figures she received from the HSE show an unacceptable level of home care support hours approved by the HSE have not been provided due to staff shortages.
Ms McGettigan, said in response to the information, “there are currently 314 people in Clare waiting for the home care support they have been promised. These are not numbers, they are patients suffering and struggling, they are families desperately trying to make up for the lack of services and provide the care themselves for their loved ones.
In total, there are an unbelievable 1,871 hours of home care not being delivered. That is a shocking indictment of government’s failure”.
“Failing to properly care for people who need it will increase the risks of complications, hospitalisations or operations. All of these will cause increased suffering for the patient and an increased workload on our utterly inadequate health system.”
“The HSE said in their reply to me that they are currently recruiting staff to alleviate the backlog, but when I raised this issue in the Dáil 6 months ago I was told the same thing! Then, there were 304 people on the waiting list, today there are 314, so clearly, they have utterly failed to address this problem in the interim. Throughout the state, the number of people with unmet need for additional hours rose 17% in just one year.”