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HSE and assessments of need for children

Instead of receiving therapy, children with disabilities are being endlessly assessed

Letters to the Editor. Illustration: Paul Scott
The Irish Times - Letters to the Editor.

Sir, – The news that over 11,000 children are now awaiting an assessment of need, while shocking, sadly can come as no surprise (News, September 26th).

These rocketing numbers can be traced directly back to the HSE’s 2020 amending of its assessment of need criteria and the March 2022 High Court ruling which found the HSE’s amended assessment to be in breach of the Disability Act.

Currently it is almost impossible for children with disabilities to access therapy with therapists (both public and private), who are being engaged by the HSE in conducting assessments of need rather than actually providing therapy.

Child disability services have almost completely collapsed in Ireland.

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Instead of receiving therapy, Irish children with disabilities are being assessed. The purpose of these assessments is supposedly to provide therapy in the future; however, given current waiting lists and the absence of resources, this is utterly delusional.

In essence, we as a nation are allocating resources to assess Irish children for disabilities for therapy that the HSE is not capable of providing. Blindly continuing with assessments which not only add nothing to the number of therapy hours overall, but suck resources from therapy provision, is absurd.

HSE senior management need to face reality in regard to their capabilities and our politicians need to address the real issue here, namely the absence of therapists and therapy hours. Resources need to be reallocated to actually providing therapy, not conducting endless assessments which add no value. – Yours, etc,

RUARY MARTIN,

Sandyford,

Dublin 18.