Brendan Courtney joined Ryan Tubridy tonight on the Late Late Show to talk about his new documentary We Need To Talk About Dad last night.
The fashion designer’s father, Frank, suffered from a severe stroke in 2015, leaving him paralysed – which left Brendan’s family wondering what to do next.
Unfortunately, at the time of his father’s stroke, he was on a basic health insurance plan, which didn’t leave their family many options in caring for Frank.
Speaking about his family’s situation, which he will go into further in his documentary, Brendan called out the Minister for Health Simon Harris to make a change to the HSE’s Fair Deal Scheme, a scheme set up to provide financial support to those who need long-term nursing home care.
“For old people we have a system that literally legislates against them, and we have to really address that ageist culture we have, because you know what we haven’t talked about it, and thats the problem,” he said.
“I am furious, I’m furious that we didn’t plan but I’m over that now because we’ve resolved our situation.
“But i’m really furious about one simple thing, and I want to challenge the Minister for Health Simon Harris to change it right now, because I was in Leinster House last week and I spoke to a number of members of the Irish government who told me that he can change this right now.
“We can only use Fair Deal for Nursing Home care, so currently, the system lets you release your asset and gets you to release funds and funnels old people into nursing homes, private nursing homes I add, because there’s not many spaces in public nursing homes.
Sudden: Brendan’s father had a stroke which left him paralysed | VIPIRELAND.COM
“So we just said ‘Can we not use the money for home care?’ – Because there’s lots of really good home care services, and they said ‘No it’s not in the Deal’.
“He can just change that system right now, and then we can start to consider bringing people home, but we can’t do that right now – so that’s what’s got me really angry,” he added.
Brendan wants the documentary to start a conversation among families about how they would manage practically and financially if one of their parents suffered from a life-changing illness in their elder years.
‘We Need to Talk About Dad’ airs on Monday, January 16 on RTE1 at 9.30pm
