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Peadar Tóibín TD says that the government is “sleepwalking towards towards a nursing home capacity cliff edge” as he raised the potential loss of 700 beds in nursing homes in Cork with Minister Mary Butler in the Dáil.
“There is a shocking emergency within the nursing home sector at present, which are experiencing a 36% increase in cost of care since 2017,” he said.
“A third of nursing homes are losing money. 900 Nursing Home beds have been lost in the system in the last three years. The ESRI says we need 40,000 residential care places by 2030. This is double what we have now. A report published in the last couple of weeks by Nursing Homes Ireland found that 33% of nursing homes who were surveyed reported an operating loss in 2022, up from 19% in 2021. On average there is €730 more per week for HSE homes, in terms of funding, when compared with private nursing homes,” he said.
The Aontú leader pointed to what he said were inequalities in the funding of private versus public nursing homes.
“We all remember how appallingly private nursing homes were treated by the State during Covid. In terms of funding, HSE run nursing homes have gotten an increase of €183 due to the cost-of-living crisis, but the private group Care Choice has only been offered €16. All Nursing Homes such as Beaumont need is €183 euro – to match the increase the public nursing homes are getting – per week in order to be viable.”
“I’d like the Minister to explain to me why nursing homes in Cork are getting €200 per resident less than Dublin homes are getting from Fair Deal? Its absolutely bonkers. Aperee are currently in receivership and are supplying 200 beds to Co Cork. CareChoice operate 500 beds in Cork, including some 56 in Beaumont Residential, which are in the Fair Deal scheme,” he said.
“Cork could be the centre of an absolute disaster if Aperee close their 200 beds and if CareChoice shut down their 500. There are a total of 700 beds at risk – where are these residents going to go? How are the families going to afford it? It has been reported to me that in Cork, 8 nursing homes have a full time fire warden which is not normal within a nursing home setting, two of these homes are so unsafe that they are no longer allowed to admit residents. There is no Registered Provider Representative for any of the 10 Aparee homes. How will you manage 500 residents in Aparee being rehomes to public nursing homes?”
“I don’t think the Ministers, or the government realise just how serious this is!” he told the Dáíl.
“I want to read the headline of an email I received this past week. The headline reads “My 90-year-old mother will be made homeless in three weeks”. The government’s inaction is leading to the eviction of people in the last years of their lives. This is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. The government need to immediately and urgently engage with the group outside the Dáil today, and to provide that €183 per week to avert this disaster.”
“31 nursing homes have closed over the past 28 months with the loss of 915 beds. 80% of the beds are in privately owned care homes,” he said.
The Fair Deal rate which the six CareChoice Cork homes, including Beaumont Residential Care, require in order to be sustainable is €1,270 per week – the rate they are currently receiving from NTPF is €1,085. The NTPF is unwilling to agree to this sustainable rate while at the same time it has agreed to a rate of €1,365 per week for another private nursing home in Cork, St Luke’s. The NTPF have stated that they face “budgetary constraints” from the HSE while at the same time the HSE is paying over €1,800 per week to care for a resident in its Cork homes.
The government say the 2023 allocated budget cannot change yet government are due to receive Billions in an unexpected Taxes. Where is the logic in this?
99 YEAR OLD MAN WILL BE REMOVED FROM HOME
“I raised this case before, and I will raise it again. I know of one family with a 99 year old father located in one of these homes, They will have to take their father out, from a location where he has been well settled for years. They will have to remove him from all friendly recognisable faces and then try to find a space in a shrinking sector.”
“Another woman who is in the secure dementia unit has been told by Care Choice that they could no longer provide the service after the NTPF sanctioned just €2.28 a day extra per resident to meet the cost of inflation. Where do the residents of these Nursing Homes go? The residents don’t want to leave. This is their home and now they are being evicted. There needs to be an immediate emergency stabilisation fund made available to keep Nursing Homes open.”
“Whether its on homecare, or nursing home care, it is truly shocking that so many elderly people, who have spent their lives in many cases building this country into what it is, and paying taxes all their lives, are now being left abandoned.”
I raised in the Dáil the shocking crisis in the Nursing Home sector.
Thousands of older people who built this country,
are in danger of being evicted from their Nursing Homes,
because the Government is short charging Nursing Homes around the country. 1 pic.twitter.com/JOoFGo9MAf
— Peadar Tóibín TD (@Toibin1) June 22, 2023
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