SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS have failed to meet a legal obligation to provide nursing home care to older people, potentially exposing taxpayers to billions of euro in compensation claims, a new report by the ombudsman claims.
The report, which was laid before the Oireachtas yesterday, also accuses the Government and State agencies of refusing to co-operate with Emily O’Reilly’s inquiry and displaying an unacceptable “disregard for the law”.
Minister for Health Mary Harney strongly rejected the criticism last night, saying the Attorney General had advised the Department of Health that the ombudsman was overstepping her mandate.
She said that Ms O’Reilly’s remit did not cover “the wider government process” or the “conduct of litigation”. She said she had “fundamental concerns” about the way the inquiry was undertaken and the failure to follow fair procedures, as well as the content, scope and language of the report.
The report Who Cares? – An investigation into the right to nursing home care in Ireland is based on 1,200 complaints over 25 years, mostly from people who could not get public nursing home care or adequate assistance from the State towards private care.
In many cases, older people and their families suffered significant financial hardship in meeting nursing home costs as a result of the State’s failure to meet its obligation to provide nursing home care, says the report.
Ms O’Reilly says the Health Act 1970 provided a legal right to be provided with nursing home care and that people should not have had to take up private care, other than as a matter of personal choice.
The report says there are more than 300 legal actions in place against the State on behalf of people seeking compensation for the costs of private nursing home care. It criticises the Department of Health for routinely settling these cases before they are heard.
The report says setting up a new redress scheme could cost several billion euro. For this reason and due to the “present circumstances”, she is not specifically recommending financial compensation.
However, she suggests the department should consider a limited scheme to compensate those families who suffered the most hardship.
Ms Harney rejected the ombudsman’s analysis, saying the Government was not aware of any “country in the world where health and personal social services are provided without some form of prioritisation which reflects the reality of resource limitations”.