Elderly in hospitals could go to nursing homes

BEDS in nursing homes around the country remain empty while hospital consultants struggle to admit patients whose beds are taken up by elderly people well enough to be discharged.

Nursing home owners say a clamp-down on health board spending is to blame for the high numbers of elderly occupying hospital beds unnecessarily.

The Irish Nursing Home Organisation (INHO) had claimed some boards are refusing to renew contracts on beds rented from nursing homes once the patient dies, thus reducing the number of contract beds available.

“Hospitals in the East Coast Area Health Board (ECAHB) are not releasing patients because the ECAHB is blocking the number of contracts it takes out on nursing home beds for public patients,” said INHO secretary Paul Costello.

“Anyone who dies in a nursing home, the contract on that bed will not be renewed.”

This was denied by a spokesman for the ECAHB who said that contract beds followed the patient and not the nursing home, meaning that if a patient died, the bed was no longer needed. He also said a large number of elderly had dependency levels too high for nursing homes.

However Mr Costello said it was ridiculous to have acute beds occupied by those not in need of acute care when there were up to 200 beds available in nursing homes around the country.

A spokeswoman for St James Hospital in Dublin, where bed blocking is a problem, confirmed they had 65 elderly patients awaiting discharge. Mr Costello said the Mater Hospital had up to 100 patients who should not be in hospital.

“The Government knows the beds are available, yet no effort has been made to talk to the nursing homes. It would appear that for budgetary reasons there is a complete freeze on contract beds.”

Plans by the Government to increase the number of beds available to the elderly outside private nursing homes has cut no ice with the INHO, which claims it will affect their income.

Public-private partnership plans will provide an average of 800 extra beds each year for the next seven years, beginning with a pilot project to create 850 additional beds in the east and south.

However, healthcare consultant Brian McEnery, who spoke yesterday at an INHO conference, said the State will be building too much capacity, so both private and public beds would not be cost-effectively used.