Prime Time findings on health cuts echo with carers across county

Date Published: 01-Jun-2011

The heartbreaking stories of carers whose lives have been devastated by the cutbacks in health services are being replicated right across Galway, according to a parents’ campaign group.

The Prime Time investigation on Monday found that more than 82% of carers have been affected by the budget cuts while almost a quarter of carers have suffered health problems as a result of the huge work load. Some 68% of family carers surveyed had cuts to carers’ payments.

The Hope 4 Disability Galway group said it was currently advocating on behalf of several families who could simply not secure basic services for their children.

“Two parents who are in their 70s having been waiting for 14 years for some urgent care for their daughter. They get very little support, a few hours or a night and they want to secure a place for her in case they die,” the group’s chairperson Eamonn Walsh told the Connacht Tribune.

“We are now advocating on behalf of three families whose children have just reached 18. They have serious to profound disabilities and are leaving special schools and moving fully under the wing of the HSE. They need a day service, respite care and other essential services such as speech and language, physio, occupational therapy. They still don’t know where they’re going in September as there’s no indication of the funding yet for this year.”

Two children in the same situation only learned of their care in August and it was “just the bare bones” of what was needed, according to Eamon.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.