We must meet the needs of an ageing country
This week the Regional Hospital in Limerick has appealed to people not to attend its emergency department because of overcrowding. Local INMO representative Mary Fogarty says the cutbacks in community nursing services and home help services are now having an effect on the high numbers turning up at the emergency department in Limerick. The hospital’s chief executive, Ann Doherty, said the hospital seemed to be experiencing a pressure point it had not seen before.
With all this in mind this editorial written in the UK paper the Guardian makes interesting reading. The editorial points out “How can a holistic national strategy be knitted together by 200 clinical commissioning groups and numerous health and wellbeing boards, not to mention financial services, housing and care providers and employers’ organisations all acting independently without a common framework? Government and citizens urgently have to prepare better for older age and our “future selves”; this requires co-ordinated action on all fronts, physical, mental, financial and practical. It requires a different ethos that sees older people as assets, not liabilities, and that tackles ageism.
Just a UK issue ? No….in Ireland we must take the same attitide to establishing proper integration of services that will keep our ageing population out of hospital.
Read the full article here http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/17/britain-ageing-population-needs-a-good-plan