Sir, – How can a country which takes a medical card from a 97-year-old man with dementia and then threatens to do the same for his vulnerable wife with advanced Parkinson’s disease say it cherishes all its people equally?
Despite multiple medical and social care problems and the need for round-the-clock private carers, the HSE refuses to listen to families and GPs. The constant supervision and care my parents need means they pay for two live-in carers, as well as two relief carers, from their pensions. The carers’ salaries takes up more than my parents’ combined pensions and they receive no State support. It is a disgrace that two elderly people who have worked all their lives, paid their taxes and now pay for their own care are having what little state support they receive stopped.
Does the State want all vulnerable elderly to go into nursing homes? As Catherine Rose, chief executive of Age and Opportunity, stated in her interview in last Monday's edition, "the care of older people is barbaric in this country".
If my parents can no longer afford to pay for their care as a result of losing their medical cards they may end up in nursing homes, which would be worse for them. And, I expect, more expensive for the State in the longer term. – Yours, etc,
DONAGH O’RIORDAN,
Romford House,
Tendring,
Clacton-on-Sea,
Essex.