Madam, – I agree whole heartedly with Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly (Home News, July 20th). I have spent the last two years in fraught communication with the district nurse and a multitude of departments within the HSE to organise full-time home care and subsequently full-time nursing home care for my then 88-year-old father who has Alzheimer’s disease.
Information and care from the HSE is disjointed and fails to form a cohesive healthcare plan for an elderly person. The sheer amount of replicated paperwork is astonishing and it is cruel and stressful to ask an elderly person to fill this out. For example, a fluid intake and outtake form was required to get incontinence pads from the district nurse. This is something I could not have done without my medical training, certainly not something my elderly mother could do. The information from the HSE on long-term care for the elderly is incomprehensible. It took time, financial means and tenacity in large doses to get care for my father. What happens to elderly people who do not have an advocate? – Yours, etc.