homehelp in Ireland

This article has also been published on thejournal.ie  Friday 23 May 2014

there are some great comments from other people dealing with issues with HSE 

please read, it make your heart boil.

Early April a request was made for home help and carers allowance. As of today, the 20th May I hadn't heard anything from either of those application. I rang the public health nurse who had made the application for home help on my behalf. Apparently she had received a letter on 24 April that my application had been refused. That is all, the letter said. Refused. She had assumed, rightly I think, that I would have received a letter too. Not so.
I am furious and disappointed that nobody bothered to tell me that I was not going to get homehelp. 

Does the HSE think that it is a novelty to get home help? That it is easy to acknowledge that one cannot look after oneself any longer? Let me tell you is the worst thing of being chronically ill. To acknowledge that you have lost your independence. To acknowledge that you need help with the most basic daily needs. To have strangers coming to your house. Does the HSE think that anybody in their right mind in Ireland would request homehelp and willingly go through this humiliating experience just for the fun of it?

Being ill is hard. Having to fight for every basic human right is much, much harder. You hear heart wrenching stories everyday on the radio.

It feels a bit like there is somebody sitting in an office with a pen and just decided to tick the box 'refused', without any further explanation necessary to the person who made the request, and who needs the help. Maybe this is not a fair assessment of the public servant, but that is what it feels like.

Having a home help is not a novelty. It is an unfortunate necessity.

I'm furious that the government for not looking after the very people who need the care of the state the most. I nearly screamed at the television when I heard the news that the government was talking about 30 million being spend on a sports stadium in Cork, money given to the GAA. Don't have enough money already? Both Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore were so proud to make this announcement. They were glowing. 

In the meantime people are losing their medical cards, they don't get homehelp, carers allowance is harder and harder to get, young children in wheelchairs which they have outgrown, are being told that there is no money for a new wheelchair, or physiotherapy, or for speech therapy... To to attend a daycare.

Having people on trolleys in A&E is becoming the norm. Waiting lists to see a consultant are months, even years. It took me nearly two years and several letters, and degrading tests to receive a mobility scooter from the HSE. At least this time round they didn't say that 'a motorised aid would make me lazy'. That was a plus!

I am nearly sixteen years in this 'game' of dealing with the so called 'health' board, and have seen a deterioration in the care provided by the state.

I am not looking for easy handouts. I am too proud to be able to look after myself as best I can, but there are times I, like many others, do need the support in order to take our meaningful place in society.

This article has been published on thejournal.ie 

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