Lack of funding is hitting neurological services in Cork

Cork people with neurological conditions are being failed because of a lack of funding, the national body for neurological organisations has claimed.

The Neurological Alliance of Ireland (NAI) said that six years after a government commitment to deliver nine fully funded community neurological rehabilitation teams across the country. 

Patients in Cork, in common with most areas of the country, still struggle to access a team.

The NAI, the national umbrella body for 40 neurological organisations, recently met with TDs and Senators at Leinster House, to call for a renewed commitment to deliver on the targets outlined in the 2019 neurorehabilitation strategy.

With this being National Brain Awareness Week, the NAI said there was now a significant regional inequity for patients in Cork who were unable to access existing understaffed community neurorehabilitation teams, due to a lack of funding.

The 2019 strategy committed to delivering specialist community teams and long-term neurorehabilitation services across the country, as well as addressing the shortfall of 171 specialist inpatient neurorehabilitation beds.

NAI chief executive Magdalen Rogers said neurorehabilitation was a vital service to enable people with neurological conditions to live their day-to-day lives.

“We’re calling on the Government to announce a commitment to funding four community neurorehabilitation teams in this year’s budget,” she said.

“We want to see this commitment during their first 100 days in office, to send a clear signal they intend to deliver on the pledges within the Programme for Government.”

Those pledges, she said, included commitments to complete the national rollout of community neurorehabilitation teams, develop more specialist inpatient rehabilitation beds, and to implement community-based multidisciplinary rehabilitation services in each HSE regional health authority area.