Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The recent headlines across the media in relation to historic nursing home charges have been damaging. Although the issue is years old, it is the current Government that is now tasked with allaying public anger. How that plays out now rests primarily with the two relevant Ministers that have been asked to conduct a review. Their report and proposals will be crucial to how the Government is judged on this issue. The Attorney General’s report sets out the legal facts, concluding that successive Governments acted prudently but the question remains as to whether the decisions taken during that time were morally right. It is the official response to this question that will cement opinion.

While we await the response and possible proposals from the Ministers, the ongoing fight for the survival of private nursing homes remains a serious issue. Many are clinging on by their fingertips as they battle to make ends meet. Rising costs across the board forced the closure of 17 private nursing homes throughout last year, resulting in the loss of approximately 500 jobs. The disruption to families and the heartbreak caused to the elderly residents who were forced to leave the place they called home is immeasurable. Nursing home owners across Tipperary predict that national closures will significantly increase by the end of this current year. Nursing home owners are burdened with doubt and worry about the future. It is now a fact that there is no surplus profit to meet the enormous increases in day-to-day costs or to satisfy HIQA demands and compliance standards. Not only will this result in a huge gap in the availability of nursing home care, it will also make hundreds more people dependent on social welfare payments.

Last December, Nursing Homes Ireland, NHI, which represents private nursing homes, lodged a complaint with the European Commission because its members they felt their voice was not being heard by the Government. NHI alleges discrimination by the State under the fair deal scheme in the resourcing of private nursing home resident care as opposed to public nursing home resident care.

At present, public nursing homes, run and staffed by the HSE, receive 62% more per resident per week than what is available to pay for the care of an elderly person in a private nursing home. This equates to €627 per week more to provide nursing home care to a person in a public nursing home as compared with a person in a private one. It is on this basis that Nursing Homes Ireland made its case to EU competition officials.

Private nursing home owners have been asked to do the impossible for years. The rising costs for heating, lighting and food have made their hard-fought battle a lost cause. Better pay in public nursing homes means that staff, particularly essential healthcare assistants who account for half of the employees, leave the private homes if given the chance to work in public nursing homes. Few could dispute that, from a business perspective, this situation is unsustainable for private nursing home owners.

Hospital overcrowding has thrown the spotlight on the importance of nursing homes. These facilities are equipped to provide step-down, respite, rehabilitation and a continuation of care to many elderly people who no longer need to be hospitalised.

Last month a survey showed that 70% of the country's 440 private and voluntary nursing homes have capacity to facilitate discharges from hospitals. This allows for a faster turnover of hospital beds. We all hear about the problems and the difficulties we have in our acute hospitals in particular, where patients are discharged from the hospital but there is no facility available for a step down. Eighty per cent of nursing home beds are in the private sector. If increasing numbers of private nursing homes are forced to close their doors because they cannot meet costs, the pressure will remain on hospitals to provide prolonged care.

It is logical and sensible to provide the nursing home sector with sufficient funding to allow it to provide its vital service. I would ask that rather than wait for the European Commission to make a decision on the complaint that has been made, the Minister should sit with the private nursing home representatives, thrash out the issues and the concerns that they have, come to a conclusion and secure the future of private nursing homes for the people, particularly those who I represent in rural Ireland in Tipperary.

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