Financial Stress
Children in Hospital Ireland first carried out research into the non-medical costs of having a child in hospital in 2004. In 2019, we decided to carry this out again to re-fresh our findings and also to add a qualitative element to the study. In 2004, the survey was paper based and relied on parents completing it while they were in hospital with their child. In 2019 most of the surveys were completed on-line by parents of children who had been in hospital in the previous 18 months. This survey also interviewed social workers, NGOs working with patients’ families and also parents themselves. This gave us some very rich and insightful personal stories and perspectives on the issues.
The strongest call for change in the area of supporting parents and families, comes from the EACH Charter, Article 3(1) and 3(2) which state that ‘accommodation should be offered to all parents and they should be helped and encouraged to stay’ and that ‘parents should not need to incur additional costs or suffer loss of income’. The charter gives recognition not only to the additional costs involved when your child is in hospital but also the loss of income which at least one parent will often experience due to having to decrease or give up work entirely.
Our study looked at the expenses which were incurred such as parking, accommodation, food and travel and also at the sometimes hidden costs of childcare for other children at home, expenses related to items such as additional laundry, gifts for family caring for other children and day trips and treats for the sick child and for siblings. We also asked parents about any loss of income as a result of having a child in hospital and also how they had managed to cover the additional costs. Finally, we also asked parents about the psycho social impact of having a sick child and whether they had accessed medical or counselling support themselves as a result.
Our summary findings are included in the summary report The Summary Report here and see photo’s below for short highlight. We are now working on developing an advocacy strategy to promote our findings to policy makers and to lobby for changes to be made.
We hope that other EACH member organisations might also consider adding to this knowledge and we would encourage other countries to share their stories with us.
The EACH Charter provides us with a strong basis for advocating for children, young people and their families and we intend to use this to help support our work.
