A Matter of Life & Death: Waterford Hospice Funding

Since January of this year I have been working on trying to collate figures on the Waterford Hospice funding situation. It was sparked when the online media source The Journal printed an article with a link to the allocations nationwide to all organisations funded by the Health Service Executive. So I had a look. As you do when you're a politician. Now it is quite convoluted but the overall picture that emerges is (surprise surprise) the Hospice in Waterford and indeed the wider South East is funded to NOTHING like the level of Hospice Organisations in other parts of the country.

Now as most of us know here in Waterford, the annual cost of running the homecare service is around €550,000 - or at least it was in 2013 and I'm quite sure it's still around that figure. The grant from the HSE in 2013 was around €205,000 - or less than 38% of the running costs. 

On top of that the Waterford Hospice is being asked - or at least we the people of Waterford through them are being asked - to come up with around €6,000,000 as a contribution towards building a Regional Palliative Care Unit (a Regional facility...think about what we're being asked here) in the grounds of University Hospital Waterford (no the name hasn't made any difference to anything before you ask: the hospital is still critically underfunded but perhaps the new Minister for Health Mr Varadker with his Waterford mum might be less in thrall to certain Kilkenny consultants and their egos - at the expense of their patients - than was his predecessor!) 

But I digress. So in 2013 the HSE funded Waterford Hospice to the tune of under 38%. This is the figure that matters. So what is the level of funding provided by the HSE to other Hospice organisations? 

I have information to hand that in other areas the amount grant aided is as high as 90% of the funding required! If the Waterford Hospice Movement were to be funded on that basis - and why shouldn't they be? - it would mean that the sick people of Waterford are being short-changed by the HSE to the tune of over €300,000 every year! 

I imagine that if this €300,000 monkey was off our backs we could well raise the remainder of the €6,000,000 required as our *contribution* towards the Regional Palliative Care Unit that the HSE is taking a generation to provide - but that's another story.

One of the recommendations from the End-of-Life and Palliative Care in Ireland report published earlier this year is that:

• The Government could be asked to address the regional disparities* which exist in the provision and funding of specialist palliative care services in Ireland, to ensure that the needs of all those who require specialist palliative care services are met - whether it be in the home, in the community or in a specialised hospice. (*my highlights)

In fact even the Houses of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health & Children made the exact same recommendation in it's own report published in July.

So I must be on the right track. What I can't figure out from the figures I have is whether Waterford and the South East receive the lowest percentage of funding (which I suspect) or indeed which Hospice Groups get the 90% as all I have are the HSE grant allocations and not the total running costs of each group. (Although I do have the Waterford figures obviously which are burned into my brain!)

What I can say is that this year, by way of two examples, the Galway Hospice Foundation received a grant of €3,428,000 and Northwest Hospice received a grant of €1,056,000.

Now don't get me wrong, it is correct that the HSE provides this funding in my view. What I cannot understand is the difference in support levels. Why are the people of Waterford and the South East being asked to raise over 60% of the running costs for the Hospice  when people in other regions are picking up just 10% of the tab?

This is (more) blatant discrimination and indeed mis-managment in my view and cannot be justified. Those who volunteer and raise money for the hospice day-in, day-out are extraordinary people. Exemplary. But are they being ridden by the HSE? Are they - and we - being taken advantage of? And if not, how does the HSE explain the discrepancy in the percentages of funding provided to different regions?

Could it be, as is often the case in Ireland, that it happens like this just because it always has? Could it be that other areas have had beneficial treatment due to political interventions? I don't know the answer. But I do know that it is patently unfair on the people of Waterford and the South East to continuously have to fund raise such a huge amount of money when other regions are being handed it from the HSE.

I'm not even going down the path that this is a core medical service which should be a funded provision of our health service and not fundraised for - other than for additional optional supports. I am happy if Waterford can just receive parity of funding with other regions in Ireland.

It is simply not good enough that an agency of the state can perpetuate this kind of inequality. We must start demanding change. Even though I know we are all demanded out here. And understandably so. But this is literally a matter of life and death. It simply cannot be allowed to continue. At least not without us shining a light on it and adding it to the TOP of our list to question our local TDs on as they gear up for an ever nearing General Election.

We need answers and we need them now. And change. We want the funding changed so that those people - our mothers, husbands, friends, relatives - very sick and dying in Waterford will receive the same level of government support as those in other parts of Ireland.

You'd really have to despair at how this country is run. It's pathetic.

Incidentally it is worth noting that when you contribute to the (very deserving) Irish Hospice Foundation, the money DOES NOT go towards the local home care service here in Waterford, which is run by an entirely voluntary committee, or towards funding the building of our Regional Palliative Care unit at the hospital. I think people often think that it does so it's worth remembering that if you want to contribute to the running of the Hospice service locally you MUST donate to the Waterford Hospice. 

Thanks for reading.