Children with severe disabilities are staying in hospital for more than 100 days longer than medically necessary because services in the community were unable to meet their needs, the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman (OCO) said on Wednesday.
Over the past four years, the department has uncovered numerous cases where children with disabilities are left behind in hospitals and other service facilities due to a lack of adequate state services to help them grow at home with their families.
Last November, OCO wrote to both the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the child and family agency Tusla, raising concerns about the large number of children and families in these situations.
An OCO spokesperson said the agency has since been “actively working with relevant agencies on these cases, with limited success.”
“Throughout 2024 we have continued to receive complaints from such children and families, or on their behalf. We are aware of one severely disabled child who has remained in hospital for more than 100 days beyond medical necessity because the service has failed to proceed in the child’s best interests,” the spokesman said.
It called on the HSE to “immediately implement” the outstanding recommendations made in its 2020 report on the issue.
“Failure to do so is causing significant harm and distress to children and their families. The state is failing to protect the rights of these children,” the spokesperson said.
In internal documents obtained under freedom of information laws, the HSE said it needed to “consider the need for alternative care” for a group of disabled children who remain in hospital beyond medical necessity.
The memo states that housing and staffing are “significant challenges” and as a result the HSE and its service providers are “having difficulty finding suitable housing to provide residential services given the state’s overall housing demand and the level of competition for available housing”.
An HSE spokesman said the authority was “concerned that children may remain in hospital for longer than is necessary to meet their medical needs”.
“The CEO has instructed that if a placement can be initiated that meets the child’s needs so that they can be discharged, the issue of resources is secondary to the needs of the child and the issue of who pays for services can be determined once the placement has begun,” the spokesman said.