Southern Trust chiefs are to be hauled over the coals by ABC Council who are demanding answers after it was revealed that over 800 people living in the area are currently waiting on full domiciliary care packages.
“Get them in here and let’s have a chat,” was how one irate representative responded when the current situation was laid bare.
There were stories of people waiting in hospital, seen as ‘bedblockers’, but unable to get released because no domiciliary care was available, while elsewhere, others were patiently waiting for people to die to grab a “freed-up package”.
In other parts, care packages were withdrawn, while the care offering to parents of children with a disability was branded a “scandal”.
Councillors certainly did not mince their words when the issue was raised at the monthly meeting of ABC Council on Monday night.
And the upshot was that they will now summon the Trust’s top-brass to come and explain and answer that all-important question, simply put: ‘Why?’
It was SDLP Councillor Thomas O’Hanlon who raised the issue of domiciliary care packages in the borough – and in particular rural communities – an issue which he described as “deeply concerning”.
He told the meeting: “As of early 2026, the Southern Health and Social Care Trust has 817 people waiting for full domiciliary care packages.
“This is not just a figure in a report.
“Each number represents a person — someone’s parent, grandparent, neighbour, or friend — who is struggling without the essential home‑based care they were promised and are entitled to receive.
“What is especially alarming is the growing inequality between Trust areas.
“Whilst neighbouring regions such as the South Eastern Trust have reduced their waiting lists to double‑digit figures, residents in the Southern Trust continue to face long and unacceptable delays.
“This has created what can only be described as a postcode lottery, and our rural communities are being hit hardest.
“Communities such as Derrynoose, Madden, Blackwatertown, and Tullysaran are experiencing severe delays in securing care packages.”
Councillor O’Hanlon asked that the council write to the chief executive of the Southern Trust, inviting them along to “address these concerns directly”.
Specifically, the SDLP man said they needed to be provided with “clear timelines for reducing the current backlog of 817 care packages”, as well as a “detailed recruitment and retention strategy, with particular focus on rural areas where shortages are most acute”, coupled with an “explanation of how the Trust plans to tackle the significant regional disparities in care provision within its boundaries”.
He added: “Our residents deserve dignified access to care and I think we owe it to them to demand answers and ensure action is taken.”
Councillor O’Hanlon was preaching to the converted, councillors singing from the same hymn sheet as a chorus of disapproval rang out around the chamber.
“ It is an issue,” declared Alliance Councillor Robbie Alexander, “especially in the rural areas that I represent, when the care providers, it seems that there’s only a certain amount of capacity. So, unfortunately, you’re almost waiting for a member of the community to pass on before another member of the community can avail of those freed-up care packages.
“It’s stopping people being discharged from hospitals. I know of a number of cases where people in the area that I’m representing are carrying out those caring responsibilities whilst they’re waiting for care packages. And some of those are end of life scenarios, so it’s very difficult.”
DUP Councillor Lavelle McIlwrath had similar experience and said he agreed with everything that had been said.
“In the last 10 days I’ve been contacted by four different families who are having their care package removed in rural areas, particularly up into Keady, across to Glenanne, the upper Markethill area,” he said. “Those are real areas that are actually having the care packages removed. They are private providers that are working for the Trust, and obviously, they’ve been told that the package is being pulled, so that’s devastating for families that are already receiving the care package.”
Councillor McIlwrath said he would “like some answers” as to why those care packages are “now being removed in rural areas”.
And he added: “The rural communities, frankly, deserve a lot better, and a lot of our elderly folk in those communities need that support and they need that help. It’s one thing not to have it provided in the first instance, but to have it removed, having had it for years, just adds to the devastation.”
Ulster Unionist Councillor Julie Flaherty said it was by no means “a new scenario”.
And it was not one which was just limited to the elderly or indeed rural areas.
“The Southern Trust has had the worst numbers for this across the whole province, for a long, long time,” she said. “We know this, we’ve seen it. The problem persists.
“We have plans sitting. We have strategic 10-year plans. We have action plans. I think one was just published today. So, yes, get them in here and let’s have a good dig at what on earth we’re going to do differently, because we cannot continue to do the same thing. It is clearly not working.
“Also, it has to be said, try being a parent to a disabled child in the Southern Trust. Try that. You ask the question as to how many hours of help or respite some of those parents are getting, because that in itself is a scandal. It’s the most dedicated team of community nurses that deliver in the paediatric system, but it’s not even touching the sides of what parents need.
“ So, yes, get them in here and let’s have a chat.”
Alderman Paul Greenfield agreed and said it was an issue which came before them as local representatives “day and daily”.
“Even this morning, we had someone in the office in tears,” he relayed. “Their wife had fallen a week-and-a-half ago, broken shoulder, in Craigavon, can’t get a care package and they’re just seen as a bedblocker. And these folks are not.”
Alderman Greenfield said people were trying to look after relatives at home and were “getting put under pressure to send their loved one to somewhere miles away” until they could be told a package was available.
Describing it as a “very difficult situation”, he too believed the Trust should be made to come along and explain themselves.
“I certainly would look forward to hearing what they have to say,” added Alderman Greenfield, “but I would like them to come with some new way that they’re trying to do things, as opposed to just telling us the figures that we already know unfortunately.”
