Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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On 13 March, HIQA ceased regular monitoring inspections of nursing homes. That also happens to be the date it was first notified of a death from Covid in nursing homes. It was said earlier by Ms Dunnion that everybody was learning about this pandemic and how we should handle it. HIQA seems to have learned very quickly, on the same date that it got notification of a death, that that was the date not to go in and inspect nursing homes anymore.

If my understanding is correct, there were no inspections or monitoring taking place in March, April or May. Looking at the graph showing unexpected deaths in nursing homes, it is clear how they spiked out of all control during that period. It was startling and we are all aware of it through the news media reports and so on. Why did HIQA take such a sudden, rapid decision to end all monitoring inspections of nursing homes on the first day it heard of a death in a nursing home? That was inadequate and inappropriate. Inspectors could have gone in dressed in PPE, or space suits if necessary. We expected staff and others to go in and carry out their jobs with little or no PPE and with instructions that they should not wear masks until they were symptomatic. We did not have the oversight of a body that the State depends on to ensure that everything was being done in a correct way. The fact remains that those inspections did not take place and we now have hundreds of families left in distress, wanting to know exactly what happened to their loved ones. They know they died but they do not know in what circumstances. They do not know what was given to them for pain or distress relief. They do not know whether they could have been transferred to a hospital. We paid millions of euro for capacity in private hospitals, which were largely left empty during the pandemic, but we do not seem to have taken the care to shift elderly people to a hospital setting where they could at least have died with more dignity, less pain and less distress. All of that needs to be investigated. Since I am not allowed mention names or families, it takes from the strength of the evidence I wanted to give to try to raise the alarm with HIQA, the public and the Government that we absolutely need a public inquiry.

The second issue I would like the witnesses to comment on is the critique of the privatisation of the nursing homes sector. HIQA states in its report that the issues relating to Covid in the private nursing homes sector throws into sharp relief the lessons we have to learn and the impact on nursing homes. It states that this exposes a fundamental weakness in privatisation of the nursing homes but at no stage does HIQA draw conclusions from that. The second conclusion that we need to start moving towards, which this committee is going to have to deal with sooner rather than later, is that the State needs to ensure that the provision of long-term care of our elderly is brought under public control and that oversight and legislation arming HIQA and others are required to end what is happening here and to develop a nursing home sector that is accountable and directly run by our health services.