A LOCAL couple has spoken this week to The Echo about their despair at having to put their intellectually disabled daughter into a nursing home because of ongoing Government cuts.
Johanne and Alan Powell, from Fethard-on-Sea, will put their daughter, Siobhan (29), into a nursing home on May 27.
Commenting on the situation and why they had to make such a heart-wrenching decision Johanne said: “She is severely physically and intellectually disabled and requires full-time care. Up to now she has been living at home with us but the recent cut-backs have finally defeated us. The final straw was when her transport from home to her day service was cut from five days to three days. At the minute we are driving her the 24 miles to her service two days a week but this is of course unsustainable. So residential service it will have to be.”
The Echo recently highlighted the devastating effect such cuts to the transport service would have for the Powells and other families in similar situations.
“The trip from Fethard-on-Sea to Ard Aoibhinn in Wexford is around 100 miles per day because it’s twice a day,” said Johanne.
“We can’t keep her home because that is not fair on her,” she added.
When this newspaper met with Johanne and the other parents in New Ross they were critical of the fact the HSE’s decision to reduce the bus run to Wexford by two days was based on economics and there was no consultation about it.
“There was no consultation whatsoever,” they said at the time.
“We were sent a letter on Monday and told the bus run will be reduced from February 4,” they added.
“We care for our daughter in our own home,” said Mrs. Powell.
“We don’t want them to go into a residential home and if we did the cost to the state would be increased,” she added.
“I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen because we are left with no choice but to look at residential care and we don’t want that for Siobhan,” she added.
She also pointed out that to have Siobhan’s transport reinstated would cost around €16,000 per year.
“Nursing home care is going to cost a lot more than that, obviously, and since one of the other people using this bus is also looking for residential care the cost of nursing home may be doubled,” she said.
“This seems like idiotic economics to us but it is going to happen.”
Referring to Siobhan’s care needs Mrs. Powell said: “Siobhan has to be changed and fed all the time. She also has epilepsy and very bad kidneys. The only time I have during any given day to do the other things that need to be done are from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.”
However, she said she doesn’t wish for her daughter to be in full-time residential care but added that that the situation is no longer sustainable.
“I am willing to look after her but I need services to do that,” she said.
In a letter sent to the Powells earlier this year HSE stated that the Rural Bus Service, which operates the bus, is no longer in a position to contribute towards the cost of the day service transport. It also stated that Wexford Local Health Office Disability Services are not in a position to fund the deficit.
In the letter, the office’s General Manager, Jeanne Hendrick, said: “I regret to inform you that [your child’s] transport to her day service will be reduced to three days.”
Ms. Hendrick also pointed out in the letter that the couples are in receipt of mobility allowance and said that would assist them in covering the cost associated with ‘any other necessary transport to and from the day service’.
However, as Johanne pointed out “the mobility grant will be gone in June” and she also said her respite has been reduced to two weeks and two weekends throughout the year.
“I don’t know what I am going to do,” she said.
“We are here 24-hours,” she added.
“We don’t get holidays and if I fall or break my leg I don’t know what we’ll do.”
The couples who spoke to the Echo earlier this year about the matter also worked out that the cost of retaining the bus service to Wexford would be in the region of €400 per week.
“For us that’s a large amount of money to come up with but within the HSE’s overall budget it’s a drop in the ocean.”
