Health service and priorities

Sir, – My mother is 90 years old and is recovering from a major operation in Tallaght Hospital. She has recovered sufficiently to go home with a homecare package but the HSE has cut the funding for this. My mother is in a surgical ward whose resources would be far better used for patients that need the care of a surgical team. The expense of this bed must far outweigh the expense of having a carer come in for a couple of hours a day. This would be for a short period until she could manage to look after herself as she had been doing prior to her operation. Is this the way the HSE is saving money? – Yours, etc,

MARION O’CONNOR,

Columbanus Road,

Dundrum, Dublin 14.