A minimum of 555 public beds in community nursing units will be shut down this year as a result of new HSE budget cuts.
The executive’s new service plan for the year says that its overall spending for 2012 will be reduced by €750 million.
Budgets for acute hospitals will be reduced on average by 4.4 per cent but this may require spending cuts of 7.8 per cent when account is taken of financial deficits carried forward into 2012.
As a result of the cuts, the number of people treated in acute hospitals is expected to fall by an average of 3 per cent.
The level of home help hours provided is to be reduced on a national basis by 4.5 per cent however the HSE plan says that service efficiencies will mean that the reduction in the number of people receiving home help services will be 1.2 per cent.
The plan says a minimum of 555 public nursing home beds will close during the year. It says a small number of nursing homes will be considered for total closure in the year ahead.
The HSE plan forecasts that staffing levels in the health service will fall by 3,200 by the end of the year.
Age Action said the cuts would hurt the sickest and most dependent of older people
“The loss of so many public beds and the scale of the cuts in the home help service provided by the HSE will undoubtedly be felt by the sickest of older people,” the charity's spokesman Eamon Timmins warned.
“Without home help service frail older people will struggle, and those requiring round the clock nursing home care will end up being admitted to acute hospitals for their care if a nursing home bed is not available.”
Director of the Older & Bolder charity, Patricia Conboy, said: "What many may not realise is that these units not only provide long term beds for older residents but also provide vital and valuable supports for those older people living at home such as respite, step down for people coming out of hospital and palliative care support."
She urged the Minister for Health, James Reilly, to reverse these proposals as a matter of urgency.