Family’s fear after IWA centre shuts day centre

Managers at the Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA) Centre in Cavan will meet later this week with HSE officials for crunch talks over the future viability of the service.

It follows an announcement last week that the local day centre had to close its doors to more than 30 regular service users, and switch to an ‘Outreach only model’, due to low staffing and resource levels.

The meeting between IWA and the HSE is scheduled to take place next Thursday, April 25, and following that, if the current impasse can’t be resolved, families of those affected face the prospect of going further with their public appeal.

Kaitlin Conaty (25) was born with cerebral palsy, epilepsy and Worster Drought Syndrome, conditions that render her both non-verbal and confined to a wheelchair since birth.

The young Denn woman, and a former pupil at Navan’s St Ultan’s Special School, has been a service user at the Cavan IWA centre for almost two years.

“It’s been a lifeline,” says Kaitlin’s dad Brian, who was promised 26 hours care per week for his daughter.

“That’s never been fulfilled. She only ever got about 15 hours. She got three days a week from 10am in the morning to 3pm but, because of staffing or whatever, she never got any more than that.”

Brian says the centre represents more than “a break in the day” for his daughter. Quite often, outside of being cared for mainly by her mum Bernie, visits to the IWA centre can be Kaitlin’s primary social outlet. “It’s an outlet for everybody, and a break for their families as well.”

Brian says he and Bernie were among the 60 or so relatives of IWA service users called to attend the centre last week, before the announcement was made public. Even to attend the meeting Brian and Bernie had to arrange to have a trusted neighbour come to take care of Kaitlin, who requires around the clock care.

The latest service configuration involves Kaitlin being contacted by an IWA worker once a fortnight, or via video call.

The couple were informed back in March that Kaitlin’s reduced hours could be cut further, from three visits to the IWA centre per week, to losing one day every second week.

“That was the first of it,” explained Brian. “We were upset about that, but said we have to live with it as it was. Then about a week and a half ago we were told [the centre] was closing all together, and they were going to be doing home visits, one hour every two weeks, or on Zoom calls. But what good is a Zoom call to Kaitlin when she’s non verbal?” asks Brian.

The model currently being adopted by IWA is the same as that delivered during Covid.

Kaitlin’s “independence”, doting dad Brian says, is essential for her continued development. She loves listening to One Direction and Mullingar’s Niall Horan, going to see the rugby in Dublin, or cheering her brother Ben from the sidelines when he plays for the local club Denn.

Brian says “you can’t fault the standard of care they give” at the Cavan IWA centre, but fumes that more isn’t being done to support them in their role.

“The problem is money, really. Wages. The wages they’re on are about €7 an hour less than the HSE, and a lot of them leave. There was 12 of them left in the last two years, and six of them went to the HSE. Three others went to something private and the other three left for personal reasons, but most of them were into the HSE.”

He describes the accessibility of care in Ireland as a “postcode lottery”.

“The likes of Cavan always seems to be at the bottom of the list,” says Brian, who admits to feeling exhausted “having to fight all the time” for better care conditions.

“It’s heartbreaking,” he adds of the situation facing his family at the present time.

IWA response

“It’s an ongoing battle,” admits Pamela Kavanagh, spokesperson for the IWA, of trying to match resources with service capability.

The IWA had said that, due to current staffing levels and available resources, the organisation is simply unable to provide an ‘in-person’ service in the Cavan centre, and that Outreach was the “only viable option” left.

IWA has been facing ongoing recruitment and retention challenges due to pay disparities within the healthcare sector, but said it remains positive and committed to providing the best services possible to their members.

“It’s a mixture of effects on every single disability sector and it’s an ongoing battle,” surmises Pamela, who adds that there is a “long overdue need” for parties involved to get back before the Work Relations Commission to try and thrash out a new deal on pay structuring.

“We are currently in the process of recruiting more staff in that area, but we have had, I suppose, a mixture of issues. It’s been the perfect storm.”

She adds that, within the sector, there is a over reliance on CE scheme workers to plug the gaps left by fully paid, fully qualified staff members.

“Now Ireland is at full employment. There’s no reason not to be paying for pay parity,” she says. “Without Section 39 organisations like IWA, these services just get handed back to the HSE, which puts them under more pressure to deliver.”

Closing services completely, Pamela says, is the last thing the IWA wants to see happen.

“That’s not to say it won’t be the case further down the line. But we do want to prevent a situation where we were left with that as the only option. Closing services is the last thing we want to do. So, at the moment, we’ve reduced, we’ve closed just the day centre, and our staff are going out to our 36 members who were coming to us, and they’re getting regular communication on that. It’s more work on the local staff as well, but we can’t open up the centre for health and safety reasons because we don’t have enough staff to operate.”