Tag Archives: private nursing homes

THE glaring disparity between public subvention provided to public and private nursing homes came under the spotlight this week as some residential care facilities request more personal protective equipment (PPE) to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic over the coming weeks. In a week when a local lobby group issued a public appeal for people to donate PPE, a huge gap has emerged in terms of state funding provided to different local nursing home operators. According to figures obtained by the Clare Champion, some public nursing homed are getting almost twice as much public subvention under the Nursing Homes Support Scheme (Fair Deal) compared with their private counterparts. Under the NHSS, the cost of care in Clare’s public nursing homes is €1,607 in St Joseph’s Community Hospital, Ennis; €1,650 in Raheen Community Nursing Unit; Ennistymon Community Unit €1,481 and Regina House Community Nursing Unit, Kilrush, €1,422. This compared to €830 for a single or shared room in St Dominic Savio Nursing …

ALONE, the charity that supports older people in need, has called on Health Minister, Leo Varadkar to ensure that a robust system is put in place to ensure all individual complaints made against nursing homes are independently investigated. A new Memorandum of Agreement between HIQA and the Ombudsman excludes private nursing homes where almost 18,000 older people reside. Sean Moynihan, chief executive Officer of ALONE said, “There are currently 700 allegations of mistreatment and bad practices at nursing and care homes in Ireland; this is a matter of grave concern to us and to older people generally. HIQA does not have the power to investigate individual complaints and as a result older people have been left with nowhere to turn”. Moynihan explained, “Currently vulnerable older people are being asked to complain to the organisation that they are alleging abuse against. The new Memorandum of Agreement between HIQA and the Ombudsman only protects the 20% of older people residing in public …