OLDER PEOPLE are being denied home help services because of a lack of staff and funding, a new survey has found.
The Irish Association of Social Workers/Age Action research showed funds were available for new clients seeking services in just one of 22 areas for which data was available last week.
The survey found that home help hours had been cut in four areas and there were waiting lists in 16 areas. There was no weekend cover for the service in Dublin South East while in Tallaght, home help was capped at five hours per week or seven hours per week in exceptional circumstances when the person lived alone.
Figures change weekly, but at the time of the last survey there was no funding for new home care packages in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin South City, Dublin West, Kildare-West Wicklow, North Dublin and Wexford.
Home care packages offer two or three hours of care per day, specially tailored to the individual's needs. There were waiting lists for packages in Dublin South East and Wicklow, while the scheme was being reduced in Dublin West and Kildare-West Wicklow.
Irish Association of Social Workers chairman John Brennan said the cutbacks were pushing older people into care and into an already troubled hospital system.
"Month by month it seems to be getting worse," he said. "People who already have a service are now under pressure in different areas to reduce that service."
Age Action Ireland said it was "unacceptable" that an older person living in one area could be denied these supports while a person with identical needs living in another area received them.
Its spokesman Eamon Timmins expressed concern at the implication of this underfunding on the Fair Deal nursing home scheme.
Under the proposed scheme, older people seeking a nursing home bed will have their level of dependency tested. Mr Timmins said it was essential that such a test considered whether the necessary services were available in that area, before deciding if a person was capable of living at home.
