Nearly 2,500 dying people are unable to obtain hospice care every year due to inequality of resources between different parts of the country, according to the Irish Hospice Foundation.
Only two regions, the midwest and northwest, come close to achieving the required level of hospice care set out in government policy 13 years ago. This stated that all healthcare regions should allocate one hospice bed per 10,000 people, or one per cent of total inpatient beds.
"Quite clearly," writes the report's author, former Hospice Foundation chief executive Eugene Murray, "it means that in some areas of the country patients at their most vulnerable are being denied access to services simply because of where they live. The target in the HSE's 2013 Service Plan that 92 per cent of referrals to hospice beds be fulfilled within seven days is irrelevant to these patients who cannot be referred to hospice inpatient care at all, because no hospice beds exist."
The report, which is based on examining and cross relating existing data from the Health Service Executive, the National Cancer Registry (2010), the Hospital Inpatient Inquiry (2010), and HSE population records (2011), finds that while 67 per cent of people say they would prefer to die at home, only 26 per cent manage to do so.
The report may be read via: hospicefoundation.ie/publications
