SPECIAL REPORT by LUCY ASHTON
Jackie Baillie MSP has blasted SNP-led West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership for sitting on £6.3 million in reserves whilst local people are getting reduced levels of care.
She has told how unpaid carers are suffering mentally and vulnerable residents are struggling to leave their homes due to the stripping back of care packages and aids.
A woman whose husband requires 24/7 care has had day care cut from four days to one and is struggling to cope.
Another woman, who suffers from crumbling of the spine and is wheelchair-bound has been waiting for six months to find out whether a ramp can be fitted at her block of flats which would enable her to get out and visit her mum who stays close by. She has told how she has barely left her home for two years and that the aid would be a massive lifeline for her.
It comes as SNP-led West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership is due to meet to set their budget for the coming year.
Documents released ahead of the meeting which takes place on Monday show there is £6.3 million in un-earmarked reserves which could be used to meet demand, including recruiting workers.
Jackie Baillie said: “It is quite simply outrageous that the Health and Social Care partnership is sitting on all this money whilst people are struggling to cope. Unpaid carers and those who have complex care needs have been let down during the pandemic.
“Now, as we look towards more normality, they continue to lose out on vital resources with little or no planning for when services will be scaled back up again to pre-pandemic levels.
“To hear that day care of four days is now just one is not good enough when the money is there to get these services back up and running again. There is no justification for sitting on all this money when there is so much unmet need. They can’t claim they are saving it for a rainy day. They should properly fund services for those who need them most right now. This is having a serious impact on people’s mental health at the end of two years of turmoil.
“People being unable to get adaptations done to their homes is unacceptable when it is something that they desperately need and which can make a massive difference to their lives.
“I am grateful to all the hard working social care staff who go the extra mile to help people, but SNP-led West Dunbartonshire Health & Social Care Partnership are letting them down and they are letting local residents down by sitting on this money when it could be used to help people.”
Case study one
A constituent who is an unpaid carer for her husband requiring 24/7 care was left without any respite for more than a year following the start of the pandemic.
Only now is she accessing some respite and day care for her husband however it has been heavily reduced.
As well as the sessions being shorter, he is only receiving one day as opposed to the four he got before the pandemic.
The woman said: “It does affect you mentally. We only get day care once a week. We used to get four. Four days of day care would make such a difference. I don’t know when that’s going to happen. I know there are problems getting staff.
“I am down and I am needing the support. We are the forgotten carers. We are looking after a relative. I am looking after my husband 24/7.
“There’s no mention of when it will go back up again because they are short staffed and there’s a waiting list. It does have an impact.”
Case study two
Anne Robinson, who is 66, requested a ramp back in September at her home in Leven Court, Dumbarton however hasn’t heard anything from the council since.
She says, with the exception of attending hospital appointments, she has barely left her home for two years.
Anne, who has Spondylolisthesis, struggles with her mobility and is keen to be able to visit her mum who lives in nearby Lomond Court but with several stairs outside her block of flats, it is very challenging.
Anne said: “It would just be a big help for myself and my mum. Other people in the flats have got wheelchairs and strollers too and it would help them.
“Mum’s got a wheelchair and I have got a really bad back. I can get to my mums if I walk but I have got to have the aid of railings or a walking stick. I can do it but it makes my back really bad.
“There’s a ramp at Clyde Court. I am at Leven Court where there are eight or nine steps and mum is at Lomond Court which you go straight into.
“It would make a massive difference for us to have a ramp.”
For the time being, they make trips to each other’s properties when there is family assistance available and wave from their windows.
Anne added: “Every night we wave to each other from the windows. Each morning when I see her curtains are open I know she is safe and I am on the phone to her constantly. Having a ramp would make a big difference.”
Case study three
Dr Jim Elder-Woodward, from Alexandria, who was born with cerebral palsy, has been left frustrated at the response from West Dunbartonshire HSCP for a special toilet within his property to be refitted after the previous unit became unusable.
He was told that, because he has another unit upstairs and has access to the upper floor of his property through a specialised lift, he didn’t need facilities on both levels.
However, he had been told in the 1980s that this was a requirement and he feels that the guidance is going backwards rather than forwards when disability awareness should be far greater and there should be a greater focus on independent living.
He said: “It is extremely disheartening to be told that, because I have access to a special toilet upstairs, the now condemned one downstairs doesn’t need to be replaced. Both toilets gave me the independence of not needing help.
“I find this decision really difficult to accept, as in the 1980s it was deemed necessary for me to have two. Since then, I have also acquired coeliac disease and really struggle, especially when I have bouts of diarrhoea. So, my ‘need’ has increased.
“Despite this, I have been advised that this has been based on ‘clinical reasoning’ but I feel the decision is more about finances than the clinical need.
“I would have thought with the decision of the Scottish Government to place social care within a framework of independent living and human rights, that the replacement of an aid, which has served me for nigh on 40 years, would have been more needy now than in the 1980s.
“It has left me in a very difficult and demoralised position.”
Maybe they’re saving the money to make more fine art oil painting investments.
That after all is what right wing administrations do when they underspend and cu5 back on welfare and social care provision.