By Róise Collins

OVER 300 patients are currently on waiting lists for home support services in Donegal, Tuesday’s meeting of the Regional Health Forum West has heard.

Councillor Declan Meehan – who had asked the HSE for the up to date figures – criticised the delays describing them as “another postcode penalty” for the people of Donegal.

Out of the 334 patients on the waiting list, 221 are waiting to receive new home support service, while 113 are seeking increases to their existing services.

While Cllr Meehan welcomed the near 20 percent reduction in the number of people waiting from the start of the year, he added that this “won’t provide much comfort” to the 334 still waiting.

He also highlighted that when compared to other counties in the west, Donegal continues to have a “disproportionately high” waiting list.

He pointed out that because of difficulty in recruitment in the private service in the county, there is a lot more pressure on the public provision of home support services.

In Donegal, 86 per cent of services are provided by the HSE, compared to just 21 per cent in Galway. Cllr Meehan said this becomes especially challenging when the HSE, through the pay and numbers strategy, fails to provide adequate funding. Given Donegal’s unique challenges, he asked whether special funding considerations have been made to help address the growing waiting lists.

“Because this is another postcode penalty for patients in Donegal when it comes to disproportionately long waiting lists for home care support packages.”

The HSE acknowledged that recruitment of Health Care Assistants (HCAs) continues to be a challenge. In response to Cllr Meehan, the HSE acknowledged that the demand for home support continues to increase with the level of individual need becoming more complex requiring on occasions the attendance of two HCAs.

They added that recruitment for additional home care assistants is ongoing and the HSE Home Support Service engages with existing and new private providers on a regular basis to ascertain their capacity to supplement HSE services.

“There are multiple recruitment campaigns being run by all providers, with some companies having a designated recruiter which has resulted in increased capacity,” a HSE spokesperson said.