UNDEREMPLOYED home helps in Dublin are gearing up for an intensive campaign to highlight the role they believe they can play in solving the hospital overcrowding crisis.
Northside home helps recently held a protest outside Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown to demonstrate their frustration over their lack of hours at a time when patients are being kept in beds due to a lack of home support.
Frances Whelan, a home help from Blanchardstown and a SIPTU activist, said:
“People are stuck on trolleys and we know we can help.
“There are many people in hospital beds who, with the correct support, can return home and be cared for by the home help service.
“However, cutbacks to our service mean that for increasing numbers this is not a viable option. We want to get the message to the public that home helps are here in the local community and we are ready, willing and able to work.
?
The local workers are employed by not-for-profit, community organisations, known as Section 39s, that are used by the HSE to provide some home help services.
A recent SIPTU survey found that nearly seven out of 10 of these home helps have less than 20 hours’ work per week and 80 per cent of them are actively seeking extra work.
“These Dublin home helps are on zero hour contracts,
? claimed SIPTU organiser Yvonne O’Callaghan.
“This means they’ve no clarity of the hours they are working; they’ve no guarantee of income every single week.
?
According to HSE figures, there was a fall of close to three million home help hours between 2008 and 2013, not including hours delivered through home care packages.
In 2007 there were 12,356 home help workers employed directly by the HSE, but by January 2014 this had fallen to just 8,298.
Also in 2007, around
?¬1 million was being spent by the HSE on private, profit making home care companies. By 2013 – after years of recruitment embargoes in the public sector – that figure had rocketed to over
?¬32 million.
At the height of the overcrowding crisis earlier this month, Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, announced he had secured an extra
?¬3 million on top of the
?¬25 million already allocated to deal with the issue.
Speaking on RTÃ?’s Drivetime, he explained that some of the cash had been allocated to provide 400 nursing home places and home care packages to assist patients leave acute hospitals.
However, Ms O’Callaghan said that while funding is welcome, it doesn’t filter down to home helps working with the, community organisations.
“That money could go into community organisations that are not making a profit,
? she said.
“We’re saying the money could go back into the system and give all these workers and their clients more hours if there was a good, value for money exercise done by the HSE.
“It’s not looking for more money, it’s looking for the money that’s already there to be used more wisely.
?
SIPTU has begun discussions with the HSE to try and address the union’s concerns and get more hours for Section 39 home care workers. As part of the talks, they also hope to get the workers similar conditions as their counterparts employed directly by the health body.
“At the end of the day the HSE is basically funding these Section 39 organisations so we’d expect the same respect for these workers as HSE workers get,
? stated Ms O’Callaghan.
A series of meetings across the city to highlight the issue is also being planned, with the first due to take place mid-February.
“We want to show that these home helps are ready, willing and able to work and that it would help ease the overcrowding crisis,
? she added.
“We need to highlight the underfunding of the home care service and show how funding needs to be re-invested, and a part of it would be to address the terms and conditions of our members and home care workers in general.
?