A significant cut in the maximum number of hours that users of the home help scheme in the west can benefit from the scheme has been announced by the Western Health Board.
The number of hours has been reduced from 18 to 11. "Unfortunately, the increasing demand for the service has far exceeded the budget," the board said yesterday. "As a result we have had to take action now to ration the service to ensure that it is possible to continue to provide a service at the appropriate level to the end of the year."
The board said that funding available for home help services in Mayo for 2002 was €4.5 million.
"The impact on individual clients is under constant review and we are considering ways to address the most extreme cases affected by this reduction in services," it added.
Home help is provided for elderly and disabled persons in their homes and is often the difference between a person having to go into full-time residential care or stay in their own home.
Fine Gael's spokesman on social and community affairs, Mr Michael Ring, is threatening to march on the offices of the health board in Galway next week with outraged relatives of home help users if the decision is not immediately reversed.
"This is an outrageous decision by the executive of the health board. The cutbacks are devastating to the people who have come to rely on the service.
"If the Western Health Board has overrun its budget then it should cut back on administration expenses, not on vital services to people," he said.
"If the CEO of the board, Síle Ryan, does not immediately reverse this decision I'll lead the protest next week", Mr Ring promised.
The Western Health Board serves the counties of Mayo, Galway and Roscommon. But according to Fianna Fáil Mayo TD and health board member Ms Beverley Cooper Flynn, the cutback was confined to service users in Co Mayo.
"I cannot accept this action by the board. As board members we were not informed of this drastic reduction in a vital service."
Swinford-based GP and board member Dr Diarmaid McLoughlin said the cutting of a service like this right across the board was not acceptable. "There has been no consultation with GPs."