Hiqa concern for disability centre residents’ dignity

The health watchdog has raised concerns about the privacy and dignity of intellectually disabled residents at homes run by a voluntary organisation in Cheeverstown House, Dublin, where some bedrooms and bathrooms are shared.

Following announced inspections of eight centres last April, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) said in some cases there were insufficient toilets and showers to meet residents’ needs.

Because of multi-functional bathrooms, it happened that residents used a toilet in a cubicle while other residents had a shower behind a curtain in the same room.

None of the eight houses had a nominated person in charge, as required by regulation. And while generally inspectors found the houses were clean “and had a warm, hospitable atmosphere” where residents “were comfortable and confident in talking about their home”, there were deficits including:

• Failure to properly manage residents’ money in one unit. Residents did not have a bank account in their own name, and there were instances of pensions or disability allowance being paid directly into a centralised bank account belonging to the organisation. In one house, staff utilised residents’ monies at times “for activity not related to this resident”.
• No fire doors on the ground floor in one house.
• In one home, the resident’s day was seen to be centred around the availability of staff. Hiqa said one relative told inspectors the resident was placed in night clothes at 7pm due to the staff number in the house.

Many of the staff spoke of “lack of staffing attributing to the residents’ lack of access to activities that are meaningful and purposeful and reflected their interests and capacities”.

Residents who accessed the respite service could not go out as a group due to the number of residents who required one-to-one assistance with their wheelchairs.

There was one house where a resident did not have access to a bathroom in their house, and had to visit another house. “This caused the resident a lot of distress,” Hiqa said.

Cheeverstown House said it “noted the findings” from Hiqa and is working with the authority to agree an action plan to “remedy the issues and concerns raised in an agreeable time-frame”.