Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has accused the government of attacking, dismantling and undermining existing public health services.<\/p>\n
Crowe was responding to confirmation from Junior Health Minister Kathleen Lynch that the government is to now introduce new means testing and charging for home care packages, and other community-based services for older people and people with disabilities or impairments.<\/p>\n
The Tallaght based Deputy said these latest attacks will undoubtedly send shock waves across the system and scare parents and carers who are currently struggling to manage.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government claims to be reforming public health services. In my opinion it is actually attacking, dismantling and undermining existing services with more and more people being forced to pay higher charges for shrinking services.<\/p>\n
“Junior Minister of State Kathleen Lynch has now confirmed that means testing and charges are to be imposed on people requiring community-based services such as home help or care. This is another attack on older people and people with disabilities or impairments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government published its glossy so-called reform framework \u2018Future Health\u2019 last year. At the time Sinn F\u00e9in pointed out that new charges would follow, as the framework stated that ‘social care services such as services for older people, people with a disability and those who need mental health services, would be outside of the Universal Health Insurance system’.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also said that the so-called \u2018Fair Deal\u2019 scheme of funding nursing home care may be extended to the disability and mental health sectors.<\/p>\n
“This will undoubtedly send shock waves across the system and scare the living daylights out of parents, carers and those currently receiving some service.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharging vulnerable people for vital community-based services that, in many cases, are allowing them to remain in their homes and out of residential care, is not acceptable and doesn’t make any social or financial sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese latest attacks come on the back of cuts and delays to grants like the housing adaption grant, the minor works grant, and mobility grants, that help enable an independent life for those living with disabilities, impairments, health problems or infirmities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese daily attacks and the undermining of existing services need to be stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cPositive reform is needed but these proposals are punitive, counter-productive and should be binned.\u201d<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has accused the government of attacking, dismantling and undermining existing public health services. Crowe was responding to confirmation from Junior Health Minister Kathleen Lynch that the government is to now introduce new means testing and charging for home care packages, and other community-based services for older people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1170,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions\/1170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}