Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The situation in nursing and care homes needs urgent attention. Due to concerns raised with me by various nursing homes, I undertook a survey between 7 and 9 April. I contacted 80 nursing homes in Waterford, Kilkenny, Cork and Kerry and received a 25% response rate. I asked whether they had sufficient quantities of PPE to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. Of those that replied, 10% had a three-day supply and 30% had a supply, but 60% had none.

Due to the number of nursing homes, especially in the east of the country, with clusters of cases, it is imperative that all nursing homes have a minimum three-day supply of personal protection equipment, PPE, including goggles, gowns, masks and gloves. This should be implemented as a priority. We hear all the time that supply is patchy, and all Deputies have raised this issue today. If a nursing home does have an outbreak of Covid-19 cases, more supplies can be provided to it.

My next question is also on nursing homes. I asked the nursing homes whether they had sufficient staff to deal with the pandemic. A total of 50% said they had while 50% said they had not. All were hugely complimentary about their staff but said they were not without challenges.

I know much work has been done on insurance indemnity. We know there is an agreement with the HSE to allow nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and other healthcare staff to be redeployed to private nursing homes. Private companies are being asked to redeploy staff. A lot of work had been done up to Tuesday of this week, but as of today, the indemnity scheme to allow private home care providers to redeploy their staff to community nursing homes has not gone through. Within the past half hour I was speaking to a manager at one of the biggest providers in the State.

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