A Stormont MLA has called for domiciliary care services in Northern Ireland to become publicly run to ease the "obscene" pressures on hospitals.
With reports of extreme stress on emergency departments across several hospitals in recent days, a key theme has been the difficulty in discharging hospital patients who need domiciliary care packages at home.
Pauline Shepherd from the Independent Health & Care Providers - which represents private, voluntary, charitable and social care providers – said earlier this week that often home care was badly organised.
In certain cases, she said three different care providers would be sent out to the same house in one day and that carers travelling to rural areas for 15-minute visits were not being compensated for their mileage.
People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll has suggested that domiciliary care should now be publicly run.
“It is obscene that people are stuck in hospitals and cannot get the care package they need,” he said on Twitter.
“Providing care to people in their homes is a much needed and essential job but one that is no doubt extremely difficult. People cannot do what’s needed in 15 minutes but the system demands that they do.”
Mr Carroll said it should be viewed as “a socially necessary service” in which carers are properly compensated.
Yesterday, Sinn Féin’s vice President Michelle O’Neill also met with the Royal College of Nursing to discuss the ongoing health crisis and upcoming strike action.
She repeated calls for the Executive to be restored.
“That’s what I’m working for, that’s what the nursing staff are telling us they want us to work for and I think the public deserve no less,” she said.
“I want to be in the executive. I want to appoint a ministerial team. I am worried that we don’t have an executive in this climate where our health service is collapsing around us.”
She said it was clear from speaking to nursing staff that they felt “exhausted and demoralised.”
“It is very clear speaking directly to nursing staff this morning the fact that they feel undervalued, the fact that they feel exhausted and demoralised.
“They are crying out for support and for help, just to do their jobs.
“What we need now is an executive. We need an executive which prioritises health. We need an executive to work very quickly to fix what is wrong.”
She added: “I am not giving up. I think the one thing nurses also asked for is some hope.
“Some hope that there will be an executive, some hope that we can work with other parties, some hope that we can prioritise a budget for health.”
On Friday a ballot on industrial action will also close for NHS workers in Unison.
Around 350,000 NHS employees working in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are being asked to vote for strike action over pay.
The union has said the events of recent days highlighted how many healthcare and nursing staff have found themselves trapped between “the frontline and the breadline.”
