Leas Cross fears raised two years before exposé

CONCERNS about deteriorating conditions at the Leas Cross Nursing Home were raised with health authorities two years before the scandal broke, according to the report into the deaths of 105 residents at the centre.

In a draft report by Professor Des O’Neill, obtained by the Irish Examiner, the geriatric consultant said the obligatory reporting of deaths at the north Dublin home was “shambolic”.

Of particular concern, notes Prof O’Neill, was the failure of health board management to “understand the very serious nature of written concerns expressed by senior clinicians”.

Concern was also raised by the Dublin City Coroner over the death of Dorothy Black, 73, who died from massive bed sores after nine weeks there, which health management failed to take on board, he added.

Prof O’Neill was commissioned to carry out the review of 105 resident deaths at the Swords home between 2002 and 2005. His conclusions have remained unpublished because of legal concerns by the Health Service Executive.

His damning conclusions are consistent with a “finding of institutional abuse”.

These include:

No returns being filed for three out of seven years to the health board on residents’ numbers and admissions.

A rise in annual mortality rates from 1998 as well as increasingly short lengths of stay for those who died.

Concerns about the use of restraints.

The “clearly deficient” expertise of staff.

Inspections which revealed a “consistent pattern of deficits in care”.

Nursing home inspectors failed to address serious complaints by relatives and letters from health professionals, the report found.

Prof O’Neill added: “Most of the other complaints from family members are consistent with the poor standards of care reflected in the nursing home inspection reports and should have triggered a more prompt and muscular response.”

Crucially though, the report on the deaths finds that “in virtually all cases, the documentation of needs and care processes was inadequate”.

Last night, Fine Gael attacked the Government for failing to introduce stringent laws to provide for stricter independent inspections of nursing homes.

FG spokesman Fergus O’Dowd said the Government had promised such legislation no less than 12 times since RTÉ’s Prime Time Leas Cross investigation last year.

“This week Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said the new law would be brought in this year but the Government’s own legislative programme states that the bill will not be published until 2007,” he said.