Dementia carers brought back from the brink

Áine Ryan

COMMUNITY Action on Dementia Mayo (CADM) has welcomed Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s announcement that funding will now continue into 2016 for the supports and services it provides. Last week a delegation delivered a sample of heartfelt letters from the families of service-users, who care for their loved ones in their own homes, to Mr Kenny’s office in Castlebar.
The letters entreated him to reverse Government’s decision to cut the funding for Community Action on Dementia in Mayo (CADM). Funding of the service, which supports 100 families and the employment of 25 staff, was due to cease on December 18 next.
Speaking yesterday, Ms Frances Maloney, CADM’s Project Manager, said the organisation in Mayo was ‘delighted with the recent announcement by An Taoiseach that €200,000  has been allocated from the Social Care Division of the HSE to continue the project, with a view to making it a permanent service’.
“We are delighted that the voice of the person with dementia was heard at local and national level. CADM will be in touch with individual families in the coming days to answer any queries they may have in relation to service provision for the remainder of 2015.The project will liaise with local HSE management to put the funding in place for 2016,” Ms Maloney said.  
On behalf of the organisation, she said she wanted ‘to sincerely thank An Taoiseach for investing in dementia care in Mayo’. She also thanked Independent Cllr Michael Kilcoyne for raising the issue in dementia.
Speaking last week, Mr Kenny said: “I have been working on this complex issue since July with Cllr Neil Cruise and Pat McHale of CADM. I am glad that today we can announce that €200,000 of funding will be provided by the HSE to continue the services.
“I want to assure the families who received a distressing letter last week that the services provided under CADM will not cease. Many families across Mayo do invaluable work in caring for loved ones with dementia and I am very glad that we are able to continue the scheme under Community Action on Dementia in Mayo.
“I want to take the opportunity to thank all those who care for family members across the county and hope that the continuation of services under CADM will offer some respite.”
Project Manager, Frances Maloney, said that since the introduction of the service three years ago, CADM had provided over 7,000 hours of community-based, one-to-one support.    
CADM  was established to develop ‘new service models which would improve the range and quality of community-based supports for people with dementia’ and harness the potential a proposed new National Dementia Strategy.
The bottom-up approach underpins government policy, which espouses the development of services enabling older people to remain at home through the creation of familial and community supports.

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