The union for workers who provide care and support to elderly and disabled people in Hawke's Bay want more support themselves.
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Hawke's Bay DHB has apologised for sending letters to hundreds of elderly and disabled people telling them they will lose home help services.
One of those people, an 88-year-old woman with a bad arthritic knee, was told "housework is a great way to maintain a good level of health".
Public Service Association national secretary Kerry Davies said the letters put many jobs at risk and should never have been sent.
She said it was a symptom of the problems facing the home and community support sector.
"We've been calling on the government, the Ministry of Health and the DHBs to properly engage in having a whole new approach to the delivery of home support services so that it's not able to be cut on a whim."
Davies said support workers were expected to perform large amounts of work in a limited time.
"Our members are already worked off their feet trying to do as much as they can to help clients in the short time slot they have allocated with them. The solution to that is to increase funding and allocate more resource to help staff and clients get the job done."
In a statement on Friday, the Hawke's Bay DHB's executive director of planning and funding, Chris Ash, said: "The DHB is committed to supporting older people to live in their own homes for as long as they can and is disappointed letters have gone out to people who genuinely still require this support.
"We unreservedly apologise for this and accept the assessment process has not been robust enough. As a result, we have put extra people in place through our needs assessment service to help manage client reviews and are reinstating services immediately for clients who have already phoned the service to advise they cannot live safely and independently at home without it.
"As a further measure, the DHB has also asked providers to make contact with all affected clients to assist them in being reassessed for support, and if they feel they still need it, to reinstate their services until reviews are undertaken."