THE DOUBLING of life expectancy among nursing home residents in less than two years could not be explained by improvements in care alone, Minister for Health James Reilly said yesterday.
The average life expectancy of patients entering nursing homes increased from 2½ years to almost five years since the introduction of the Fair Deal scheme, he said.
Dr Reilly was speaking yesterday ahead of making a statement in the Dáil today on funding difficulties with the Fair Deal nursing home scheme.
Dr Reilly had “not got to the root of the money trail yet” with an investigation into the diverting of €100 million earmarked for elderly care to elsewhere in the health service. “I’m still not happy that I’ve found out everything and I’m going to keep at this until I do.”
He raised the issue of further fund diversions. “Are there other pots of money that have been pilfered, pilfered might be the wrong word, but, you know, used inappropriately?”
He addressed the advantages of providing community support over nursing home care.
Insufficient care in the community meant that many older people were left with no choice but to go into nursing home care.
It was inappropriate that lack of support meant that someone who was medically fit to stay at home could not. It would be more cost-effective to provide support in the community than put them in long-term care, Dr Reilly said.
“It becomes inevitable for people sometimes and that’s fair enough, but it shouldn’t happen before it’s due to happen. I don’t think its fair on the patient concerned and its certainly not cost-effective.”
The difference in costs between public and private nursing homes was “not sustainable”, he added. Public nursing homes appeared to cost 50 per cent more than private nursing homes. A tender for a 100-bed nursing home built by the Health Service Executive received applications from operators willing to run it for €1.8 million less per annum than the executive.
The Fair Deal scheme was introduced in October 2009 to fund long-term care for the elderly.
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