The Government has been urged to postpone the introduction of its proposed new way of funding nursing home care from the beginning of next year to allow a full debate on the implications of the new "Fair Deal" scheme to take place.
The plea came yesterday from a coalition of groups dealing with the elderly including the Irish Society of Physicians in Geriatric Medicine, Age Action Ireland, the Irish Senior Citizens' Parliament, the Older & Bolder Campaign, the Irish Gerontological Society, the Irish Nursing Homes' Organisation and the Irish Association of Social Workers.
The scheme was announced by Minister for Health Mary Harney in December 2006 but legislation underpinning it hasn't yet been published. However, the coalition of groups dealing with older people fear it will be guillotined through the Dáil before Christmas without any debate.
Under the scheme those in need of nursing home care will pay a maximum of 80 per cent of their disposable income towards their care as well as up to 15 per cent of the value of their estate after their death.
Dr Diarmuid O'Shea, a consultant geriatrician at St Vincent's hospital in Dublin and a member of the Irish Society of Physicians in Geriatric Medicine, said this was akin to "legalising financial elder abuse".
He also said the Fair Deal scheme should be postponed to allow a wider debate on all the challenges of funding healthcare. "To single out the older person who has already paid their taxes and has put us where we are is both unfair and wrong. What you are targeting there is the vulnerable voiceless group," he said.
Dr Des O'Neill, a consultant geriatrician at Tallaght hospital and a member of the Irish Gerontological Society, said there should be a Green Paper on the whole issue of funding nursing home care before the changes aree introduced.
"Much of the background thinking on this is anonymous, the report underlying a Fair Deal is anonymous . . . so we have no sense of the philosophy underlying this," he said.
But, he said, a deeper concern was eligibility for an older persons service which was being decided in isolation when a widescale review of eligibility was taking place in the Department of Health. "We would say put nursing home care in with that and whatever you decide for funding of cancer care, funding of cardiac care, it should be the same for nursing home care," he said.