Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for the bland and general response and failure to deal with the issue. The decision to close Abbeyleix community nursing unit is exclusively a financial one. I ask the Minister to take this on board as the basic situation in Abbeyleix community nursing unit. The payroll bill is €2.6 million. All the staff can be redeployed to Portlaoise, Mountmellick and other areas so there can be no savings as a result of the closure. Most of the 30 patients will transfer to private nursing homes at a cost of approximately €1,000 per week for 50 weeks of the year, incurring an additional cost to the HSE of private nursing care of €1.5 million. This decision is solely about the HSE making a decision to replace one set of private operators, that is, agency staff, with another set of private operators, namely, nursing homes. This is purely a financial decision. The Minister did not deal with the figures. We want to see the case being made on financial grounds, as stated by the Minister. He said the decision was based on anticipated losses. Therefore, he is only guessing what might happen. That is not a reason to make a decision now.

In regard to where the residents will have to move he said the "selection of an alternative placement for residents will be informed by the medical and care needs of each resident as evaluated by clinical staff". In other words, they will be told where to go by the medical staff. That is not good enough and I ask the Minister to address the issue.

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