Home help feels the pinch as staff numbers suffer

Despite rising demand for home help services, the numbers of HSE staff providing the service continues to fall – with the public health service turning more and more towards private care providers to bridge the gap.

That’s according to a HSE-employed Health Care Support Assistant from East Galway who told the Connacht Tribune that despite Covid, their work has carried on.

“We have a great responsibility to care for people who in many cases are totally isolated and dependent on us – for that elderly lady out the country, when we go in and get them up in the morning, we might be the only person they see from one end of the day to the next,” she said.

In figures released to the Tribune, Community Healthcare West revealed that fewer than ten home helps have been isolating as a result of confirmed Covid or close-contact in recent weeks.

However, 36 of the HSE’s 218 full and part-time Health Care Support Assistants are over the age of 70 and have been forced to cocoon since restrictions came in March 2020.

And 189 clients have also voluntarily suspended their home support hours as a result of the pandemic, to reduce the chance of transmission in cases where there are alternative care arrangements in place.

This is despite there being some 3,297 people in receipt of home supports in Galway City and County.

Junior Minister at the Department of Health and TD for Galway East, Anne Rabbitte, said the recruitment problems in the sector were significant, particularly as there had been a huge drive to employ additional care assistants in nursing homes and hospitals in recent times.

“The HSE ran a very intensive campaign for nursing homes, and that often offers a better contract, so that has sucked away the pool of potential home helps.

“A big problem is that even when you secure home help for someone – and it may only be three hours when they need much more – they could be waiting weeks to actually find a person to do the work,” said Minister Rabbitte.

Read the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie