Age Action warns against extra nursing home costs

Plans for nursing home residents to be hit with extra costs to have access to “toiletries” and other vital services would completely undermine existing policies meant to ensure their care.

Age Action Ireland issued the warning after revelations that the move could be forced through to cover HSE budget cutbacks being imposed on the system.

Earlier this week, the Irish Patients Association revealed Carysfort Nursing Home in Glenageary, in south Dublin, had sent a letter to the families of 30 residents advising they may have to pay an extra €720 a year.

Management at the facility blamed cuts to private nursing home Fair Deal budgets by the National Treatment Purchase Fund, a sub-group of the HSE.

The Carysfort letter said the potential extra payments — also being discussed in other nursing homes — may be needed to cover costs for services like physiotherapy, chiropody, transport to hospital, specialised wheelchairs and even “toiletries”.

While accepting some private nursing homes already charge for these services, Irish Patients Association chairman Stephen McMahon said the issue has been further compounded by NTPF Fair Deal budget cuts. In extreme cases, the issue means elderly residents may have to pay as much as €3,600 extra a year.

However, Age Action Ireland spokesperson Eamon Timmins said any move to make vulnerable older people bridge the gap in state budgets is utterly unacceptable and must be prevented.

“Under the Fair Deal scheme the State currently takes 80% of a person’s disposable income along with up to 22.5% of the value of their home.

“For somebody on a state pension, they are left with just €44 per week to pay for other essential costs which are not covered by the Fair Deal, such as chiropody, physiotherapy, specialised wheelchairs, the prescription charge for their medications, toiletries and hairdressing.

“To suggest that a mandatory charge may now be introduced for social activities in a bid to pick up the tab for cost-cutting by the State will leave many older people in penury and choosing between which of these other essential services they will have to go without.

“By creating new charges, to be paid out of what is left after the State has taken its cut under the Fair Deal, would completely undermine the original purpose of the scheme,” he said.

A HSE spokesperson said that the NTPF is still in “one-to-one” negotiations with private nursing homes to decide on what funding they should receive. She said the “cost of care” in the facilities covers services outlined in the Nursing Homes Support Act, 2009, which allows units to “impose additional charges for incidentals/extras such as social programmes, transport, newspapers and hairdressing, as these costs are not included in the cost of care”.