ELEVEN patients were unable to be discharged from Letterkenny University Hospital due to significant home help pressures.
The figure, as of November 14, 2025, was revealed this week as home help waiting lists came under the spotlight.
At Tuesday’s meeting of the Regional Health Forum, West, Councillor Ciaran Brogan sought information on the number of people currently on waiting lists for home support in Donegal.
He was advised that, in all, 282 people in Donegal are awaiting home support.
This includes 263 people who are at home awaiting support hours and eight patients in community hospitals.
Cllr Brogan also requested figures for other Integrated Healthcare Areas (IHA) including Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, south Donegal and west Cavan, where 183 people are awaiting home support.
Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Brogan said he brought the matter forward to bring awareness to the challenges around home help support. He questioned if all “options are being explored” in a bid to improve recruitment of home care support.
“We all know late discharge from hospital beds is causing backlogs in hospitals,” he said.
Responding, Dermot Monaghan, Integrated Health Area Manager, Donegal, said ongoing recruitment for Healthcare Assistants (HCAs) (home support) in Donegal is being prioritised by HSE Human resources. He pointed out an additional 12 have been recruited into the HSE Home Support Service this year to date.
“There are HSE panels in place for HCAs and interviews have recently taken place to add further candidates onto these panels in an effort to address the waiting list for home support.”
Mr Monaghan added that the HSE Donegal Home Support Manager has also met with all private providers on several occasions this year to support initiatives to recruit additional HCAs in Donegal.
However, capacity remains minimal and on a number of occasions this year, the HSE has had to take back clients from the private providers as they were unable to continue delivering services to some clients due to staffing issues.
“The Home Support Manager has scheduled a meeting with each private provider again in the next month to see if progress on recruitment can be made,” said Mr Monaghan.
