SERIOUS CONCERN has been expressed by Age Action Ireland at the number of public nursing home beds that have been or are about to be closed by the Health Service Executive (HSE).
Some 87 long-stay or respite beds are to close at locations including the Orchard Nursing Home, Bray, Co Wicklow; Bethany House, Carlow; and St Patrick’s Hospital, Waterford.
The HSE has said these facilities, in addition to Heatherside Hospital in Buttevant, Co Cork, are closing for health and safety reasons.
Age Action spokesman Eamon Timmins said that if public facilities were closed for health and safety reasons, this should not result in a reduction in the number of beds available for older people.
He said facilities should only be closed as a last resort, when the cost of refurbishment was prohibitive. “Transferring older people from one home to another can be very traumatic,” he added.
The Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO), which previously expressed concerns about HSE plans to relocate 43 elderly clients with mental illnesses from the Buttevant facility to a psychiatric hospital more than 64km (40 miles) away, said yesterday it was outraged at the plans to close beds in Carlow and Waterford.
INO industrial relations officer Liz Curran called on the HSE to reverse the closure plans, saying she was concerned about the effect the relocation to unfamiliar surroundings would have on the patients.
She said the fact that the HSE had not accepted an offer from the friends of St Patrick’s Hospital to refurbish the 19-bed ward which is being closed raised suspicions that the HSE was actually closing beds to cut costs and doing so under the guise of health and safety measures.
The HSE said an independent review had found that Bethany House could no longer provide appropriate standards of care to cater for the growing dependency needs of its elderly residents.
It said all 25 residents, in consultation with themselves and their families, would be relocated to better, safer, purpose-built facilities. It said it realised change could be unsettling but friendships would be taken into account when residents were relocated.
The HSE also said the ward that was being closed in St Patrick’s was on an upper floor and was no longer suitable for older people but a new 50-bed community nursing unit would be provided for Waterford in due course.
Dermot Halpin, local health manager for Waterford, said: “We have a responsibility to our elderly patients to ensure that the new and emerging standards for quality and safety are applied to their care – that we meet standards for infection prevention and control, environmental standards, and fire and health and safety standards.”