BREAKING: HSE to take over payment of nurses providing cancer home care in south Tipperary

The nurses engaged by the South Tipperary Hospice Movement to provide palliative care services will now be paid by the HSE.

The handover to the HSE, which is also due to happen with similar services in other areas in the south-east over the coming months, took place on April 17.

The HSE will now be responsible for the payment of the 6.5 nurses that were providing services for the South Tipperary Hospice Movement. Up to now the HSE had been providing a grant to cover one third of the wages of the nurses working with the South Tipperary Hospice Movement.

A new partnership between the South Tipperary Hospice movement and the HSE was announced on Monday. The statement made by the South Tipperary Hospice Movement  welcomed an "exciting new chapter" which they say will result in enhanced palliative care services to the people of south Tipperary and west Waterford.

The following statement was released by the South Tipperary Hospice Movement on Monday.

The South Tipperary Hospice Movement (STHM) and the HSE are delighted to announce the start of a new partnership which will result in enhanced Palliative Care services to the people of South Tipperary/West Waterford. From 17th April 2023 the nursing service will be funded and managed by the HSE.

This exciting new chapter for STHM paves the way to provide and extend the services offered to patients and their families such as:

Financial support towards the provision of community based palliative care beds
Enhanced bereavement services
Current provision of office space, education, administration and operational support for nursing service
Complimentary therapies
Development of a voluntary driver scheme to assist patients requiring treatments
 

Ann Guida, Spokesperson, South Tipperary Hospice Movement commented “This is an extremely positive development for the public in our catchment area. This enhanced HSE support enables us to provide additional services to palliative care patients in the area. From the patient and family perspective, there will be no changes to this service offered, only enhancements. The office remains open, the nurses and administrative staff will all be staying with us. We will continue to operate from our HQ at The Quay, Clonmel and our contact details remain unchanged.”

For the last 32 years, the STHM has been providing palliative care services in the home, nursing homes and District Hospitals. It has been made possible by the provision of funding raised from the local population. The efforts of the fundraisers in all areas have been extraordinary and the generosity of the public in spite of the various crises that have occurred has been humbling.

Ms Guida continued “The key message today is that we are not going anywhere, in fact we are expanding our supports and services. It is important to note that this is not a time to scale back our fundraising efforts, on the contrary it is the time to step them up to make lasting and meaningful change and push our wonderful movement forward”.