Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)

I thank the Labour Party for putting forward this very important motion on nursing homes. I support it and its calls to prioritise equality and safety in the care of older people. Overhauling nursing homes is what we need to look at. As someone who has worked on the ground and worked for the company involved in the documentary, I am not surprised. To say that 80% of nursing homes are now in private hands and are profit driven is beyond a joke at this stage. I have worked in nursing homes and I can safely say that every aspect of those homes is profit driven. It goes from the food people are given to the deodorant and the soap they use. It is a shocking indictment of society that everyone has to go around their nursing home smelling the same and looking the same. If it comes to it, they have to buy clothes for people. That is how bad it is. If their clothes are damaged, the nursing home may not provide them with clothes. The person's relatives might be in another part of the country. That company in the documentary would not necessarily be just looking after old people. It could be a mix of people in the home. It is profit driven. We need to emphasise that we have lost humanity when profit comes before our elder citizens.

Like my colleagues, I found the "Prime Time Investigates" programme extremely difficult to watch. In the documentary, we saw older people not being treated like humans. The documentary demonstrated consistent patterns of neglect and lack of care in nursing homes across the country. It is deeply concerning. We have been getting phone calls over the past few weeks about certain issues within private nursing homes all over the State. I was a healthcare worker prior to being elected. I know exactly what is happening on the ground.

HIQA has an issue here. It is coming in and doing inspections after this is not good enough. HIQA coming in is like the old analogy of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. We find ourselves in a ridiculous situation. We are revisiting this 30 years after previous investigations and TV programmes. No lessons have been learned and profit is allowed to be the driver.

The average age of the population is now higher than it has ever been before. The number of people aged over 65 in Donegal has increased by 19% since 2016. We have to start properly and publicly investigating care of our growing population. It is clear we can no longer rely on private companies to deliver care. The current service providers are only motivated by profit, which is evident in the constant cost-cutting measures that are used. We need serious investment into the creation of public nursing homes with community beds.

I support this motion's call to ensure the national development plan includes a funded programme to develop new, public, long-term residential care, through community nursing homes, to meet the needs of our ageing population. We need to engage in long-term thinking and strategic planning. People cannot be expected to rely on their families any more to take care of them as they get older, given the number of young people who have been locked out of home ownership and forced to emigrate. We need to ensure that we have enough residential homes to cater for our ageing population and that these homes are well-staffed, comfortable and safe.

I also highlight the fact that residential homes are not covered under the Government's defective concrete scheme. We know of a few residential homes in Donegal that are affected by defective concrete. This must be taken into account. Families with loved ones in a nursing home have more than enough on their plate and they should not have to worry whether the building a family member is residing in is safe or structurally sound. However, this is a worry being forced on many family members in Donegal, on top of the worry about whether their loved ones are being treated with the decency and respect they deserve. Some of these families might have been forced to put their loved one into residential care because their home was unsafe due to defective concrete. I know this for a fact. Mould is always an issue in such a home and if someone living in it has respiratory problems, there is no choice as they have to be got out of the house to prolong their life.

The defective concrete crisis has its tentacles in every aspect of daily life in Donegal. What the Government is not seeing on the ground is that for people impacted by this crisis, it is a constant presence in every aspect of our life, including in nursing homes and community centres. It goes right across the spectrum of every aspect of our lives. Crèches and schools are also affected.

The Government underestimates just how much this crisis is a part of everyday life in Donegal. For example, there is an estate in Mountain Top in Donegal where every house in it has defective concrete. There is a nursing home and an office block at the entrance into this lovely estate, which is no longer lovely as it is decaying, and both of them are defective. The families of the residents in the nursing home are stressed and worried, but there is no scheme in place for them.

I will return to the subject of nursing homes. I worked in a nursing home up to my election. The staff in nursing homes are extremely caring people. There were a few bad people. Former staff members called me to say they feel uneasy at work and that they are being watched. HIQA can show up at 6 o'clock in the morning. It is meant to do that. However, HIQA is responsible here too. If a member of staff is taking a resident, who is mobile, to bed, HIQA can watch every aspect of that in the hallway but as soon as the staff member takes the resident into his or her room and closes the door, HIQA is not allowed into the room. A HIQA inspector can only observe staff and residents in public doorways. He or she cannot go into a room and watch a member of staff put a resident to bed. That is wrong. We do not know if best practice is being taught. If a resident is being put in a hoist, if the door to the bedroom is closed then the HIQA inspector cannot see him or her because they are in the hallway.

I will give another example while I am at it. The residential place where I was working is a high-security locked unit. It is a circular building with a walkway around it and rooms off the walkway. People were in sections and staff looked after a section. HIQA decided that was not right. It said we should open up the whole place and let people wander around. Staffing levels were at a bare minimum. We saw the fall rate and transfers to hospital go through the roof. The decision was made by a HIQA inspector as to what should happen, so what worked for the previous 15 or 16 years was discontinued and we went on a different route. It is unacceptable that residents are left in dangerous situations because of staff shortages, which is an everyday occurrence.

One can see the faults when one has one's feet on the ground. HIQA must also take responsibility and look at the way things are done. It is fine to have 6 a.m. inspections, but let us put it where there is best practice. For example, when people can train online as a healthcare assistant at FETAC level 5. They can spend €1,800 on it, walk into a nursing home and get work experience and also get a job. Whereas, I trained for two years' part time to up my skills with Elspeth Vaughan in the ETB, one of the best training courses one could get. We did everything to a very high standard. When someone with this standard of qualification goes into a private nursing home, straight away he or she gets calls from the HSE with offers to join it and promises to give us this or that. I would not be moved. I worked for the minimum wage, but I would not be moved because I cared for the people. That is what is missing. The fact is that we no longer care for the people we look after. It is profit driven. We need to get back to a place where the elderly people are the most important ones.

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