UP TO 100 babies with brain damage and severe developmental delay who are being cared for in their homes may have to return to hospital if a funding shortfall of €750,000 to a charity cannot be bridged by the HSE.
Their return to hospital would cost the State more than €14 million, according to chief executive of the Jack and Jill Foundation, Jonathan Irwin.
He could “not describe” how disappointed he was yesterday following a meeting with the Minister for Equality, Disability and Mental Health, John Moloney, where his “urgent request for increased funding” received an inconclusive response.
Mr Moloney said he would consider the request and contact Mr Irwin in the next fortnight.
Jack and Jill provides frontline homecare and respite services to 320 families of children who are born with or develop brain damage and who suffer from severe intellectual and physical developmental delay.
It raises over 80 per cent of its own funds but is experiencing a shortfall of €450,000 this year due to a 40 per cent increase in family payments and support over the past two years and a 25 per cent decrease in donations.
Though it usually provides services only to children up to age four, the charity’s nursing team also has requests for home care for 81 children now over the age of four. Meeting their needs until they can be handed on to the HSE will cost €250,000.
Unless its annual grant of €556,000 was increased next year to €1.35 million, Mr Irwin said intensive home services would have to be cut by one-third from January 1st, resulting in the return to hospital of about 100 babies.
The charity, he said, provided everything a baby would get in ICU, in their own bedrooms – “monitors, suctioning equipment, drips, breathing apparatus”.
“We have had consultants writing to the Minister on our behalf telling him the service we provide is vital, that the best place these babies can be is at home.
“And our children are in every community – from inner city Dublin, to Ailesbury Road, to Traveller families. And they have done nothing wrong. No one has fallen off a bike or been hurt in an accident and all they want is to keep their babies at home. No mother wants her baby 50 miles away in hospital.
“I cannot describe how disappointed I am that we don’t have the cheque in our pocket. I expected to be able to reassure parents after the meeting. The door is not closed and we haven’t given up. We will be writing to all our families to keep them informed but unfortunately our financial situation remains the same.”
