Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It is important that we all recognise the Government policy context in which care for older people is being provided. In respect of nursing homes, as we are aware, that is largely privatised. It is an 80% privatised approach using for-profit services with no clinical oversight, and it is also a political context, which allows for poor staffing ratios and practices.

Many questions have been asked about learning from mistakes. The key learning needs to be at a political level in terms of taking a new approach to the care of older people and doing things differently. I hope that learning will be understood and followed by the incoming Government.

It is also important to recognise the need to free up hospital beds at a particular point in March and April in preparation for what looked like a huge surge coming towards Ireland. In fairness, that needs to be recognised, and freeing up as many hospital beds as possible was the right thing to do. Notwithstanding that, clearly there were issues, and mistakes were made. At this point, we had a situation a couple of week ago where Nursing Homes Ireland made an allegation that the transfer of patients from acute hospitals was a significant contributory factor to the ensuing appalling situation we saw in nursing homes in terms of prevalence and death rates. What analysis has been done of those patients who were transferred from acute hospitals? Can that analysis be made available publicly?

My second question, which I have received queries from families about, relates to what seems to be the current practice for families who are trying to get elderly patients transferred from hospitals to nursing homes. It seems it has gone to the opposite extreme in terms of being very tight. That is a good thing, but there seems also to be a requirement for a nursing home to be Covid-closed for 28 days, including patients not having any fevers. Is that the case? Can detail of that guidance be provided to the committee?

My final question relates to a previous comment made by Dr. Jack Lambert about the nursing home sector not being adequately prepared for a second wave. Is there a clear protocol on that, has it been published, and will that be made available to the committee?