Sir, – Anyone with a relative or friend in a nursing home today will be enraged and saddened by media reports of rape and sexual assault on nursing home residents by a staff member (“Rape of nursing home resident and other sex assault allegations ‘hugely distressing’, says Varadkar”, News, June 21st). This rocks the very foundation of older person care in Ireland.
I pay tribute to brave “Emily”, now sadly deceased, whose testimony convicted the perpetrator. It is particularly disturbing to read that some other female residents also made allegations but were not believed or listened to. These women were dismissed on clinical care grounds as staff believed that they were suffering from confusion, delusion or hallucinations. The fact that this happened in a HSE-managed home adds to the horror. These families entrusted their loved ones, who are older and vulnerable, to the care of the State. The fact that a State-run residential centre did not follow safeguarding procedures beggars belief and follows on the infamous Brandon case, where people with intellectual disabilities were sexually abused over a period of 13 years in a HSE-run residential centre.
How and why has this happened again?
Moreover, HSE-run homes typically enjoy a higher ratio of staff to resident. If this abuse can happen in a HSE-run home, is the level of risk even higher in privately run centres?
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In my view, the Emily case is yet another example of the utter failure of an outmoded institutional model of care, where people are seen only through the lens of their disability or illness and by the convenience of staff and the priorities of the institution.
The fact that this happened during Covid, when residents were isolated and separated from family members, is particularly poignant.
It is long past time that our nursing homes, both private and public, adopted a person-centred model of care rooted in human rights and the needs and wishes of the individual resident. This is the system advocated by the World Health Organisation and supported by experts in the field, nationally and internationally. This person-centred model of nursing home care is advocated by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) and reflected in its National Standards for Residential Care.
I question why after 14 years of HIQA supervision that yet another tragic failure in patient safeguarding is attributed, at least in part, to an outmoded culture and practices.
What assurances can the HSE, HIQA, private nursing home operators and their representative bodies give that such abuses are not happening in another nursing home here and now? One lesson worth reflecting on is that never again should any nursing home resident be locked away and denied the support and comfort of a relative, friend or advocate, no matter what the circumstances. – Yours, etc,
JOE BOYLE,
Shankill,
Co Dublin.