Nursing home body by autumn pledge
On a day when Dáil proceedings and the weekly Cabinet meeting were dominated by the political fallout from RTÉ’s PrimeTime investigation into the Leas Cross nursing home, Mr Ahern did not attempt to defend government inaction over many years in setting up an inspectorate.
The Taoiseach said that “no excuse can be offered or should be (offered) by way of trying to defend what happened” and the lack of training, management and supervision exposed by Prime Time.
Saying he was “deeply concerned” by the situation, the Taoiseach said the Government would legislate in the autumn.
It will establish the Social Services Inspectorate on a statutory basis, widening its remit to allow it inspect both public and private nursing homes. At present, only private nursing homes are inspected.
He also told the Dáil the Health Service Executive had visited the nursing home yesterday and would be placing a nurse manager, with support staff, to take over the management of the home.
During leaders questions, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte and Greens leader Trevor Sargent denounced both the practices revealed by the documentary and serious shortfalls in inspection of nursing homes.
“It exposed a level of degrading and humiliating treatment of elderly people that should not be tolerated in this or any other society,” said Mr Kenny.
“Those we saw (on television) have paid through the nose for the privilege of being effectively tortured,” he said.
Mr Kenny called for the immediate establishment of an independent inspectorate while Mr Rabbitte said the Government should do so by bringing in emergency legislation.
The Fine Gael leader also described the practice of giving nursing homes advance warnings of inspections as “inexcusable.”
Mr Ahern agreed it was “bizarre” that nursing homes were being forewarned. “This is not an inspection in the real sense,” he conceded.
Mr Rabbitte said that it was “shameful for the Government and for our society that (this) could happen in our modern society.”
He pointed out that the generous capital tax reliefs for nursing homes were not contingent on the standard of care they offered.
Mr Sargent said that some people had made a lot of money from nursing homes while the State was “abdicating its responsibility” to residents.
A government spokesman confirmed last night that 80 of the 430 private nursing homes had been inspected only once last year, and not twice as is required by legislation.
A total of 26 of these were in Co Cork, which has 49 registered nursing homes. He said that this was due to resourcing problems in the Southern Health Board last year.
The spokesman said that there was no statutory basis for giving nursing homes advance warnings of inspection, but it was a practice that had evolved.
