I was on my feet in the Chamber for some time last week highlighting the plight of people with disabilities as a result of Government cutbacks. Tonight, I must highlight the difficulties of another group of people who face extreme difficulty, those who depend on home help. I do not know if the Minister is aware of the dire situation in the Southern Health Board region but people in my constituency of Kerry South have been in contact with me about this issue and they are in a dreadful state. The home help service is essential in assisting families who are caring for elderly or ill people. Many families who are trying to keep their lives together while keeping a parent or sibling at home need the home help service. I will not be political about this issue but I appeal to the Minister to use his office to see if anything can be done in the Southern Health Board area for the home help service.
An open letter to the Minister for Health and Children was published in The Examiner today. The correspondent, a woman, said her home help service ceased on 13 November last year. The woman has secondary progressive multiple sclerosis or chronic multiple sclerosis. Her home help was restored on 9 January. She has a husband and two children and her daughter helps her mother with her bodily functions and everything she needs to do. Her daughter has said she doubts that she will ever have children herself because she could not put anybody else through what her mother is enduring.
A family contacted me recently about this matter. Their mother is in the final stages of senile dementia. It is a small family and the members have juggled their lives to keep their mother at home. She had 21 hours of home help but the family received a phone call last week to notify them that this was being reduced by three hours. This might seem small but three hours to this family means they must juggle their lives again, get more hours off work and get their children to mind their mother. I plead with the Minister to ensure that emergency funding is made available for these dire cases so people can keep members of their family at home. If another hour is cut from the home help service for the woman with senile dementia, it will mean she will finish her life in a hospital. The family does not want to put their mother in hospital, they want to keep her at home. The Minister will understand that.
I pay tribute to the local staff of the health board. They are genuine people who work at the coalface. They hear people's grievances. The district nurse recommends the hours but the money is not available to provide the service for those hours. The staff of the health board have to give the bad news. The people giving the bad news are human too and it breaks their hearts to give it. It is unfair of the Minister to put his staff, the patients and their families through such turmoil. The cases I have raised, as well as others, involve people in their final days. I ask that they be given the dignity of staying at home and that their families are assisted in caring for them. I hope I will get a positive response from the Minister of State as to why the Southern Health Board has been instructed to cut home help.