There appears to be no ‘Fair Deal’ for my old and frail mother-in-law

Kathleen Hegarty is my frail, 85-year-old mother-in-law who suffers from dementia and recently broke her hip.

Two years ago, she fell and Cork University Hospital (CUH) would not release her home as there was nobody living in Ireland to help her and there was no home help available. We paid for help privately for a few months until that became too costly, and after that, we did receive home help which has been a life saver.

Unfortunately, we are at a crisis again. CUH is refusing to release Mrs Hegarty into her own home and they recommended a nursing home in Cork. I came back to Ireland to see her and also to apply for the ‘Fair Deal’ scheme which I believe takes 14 weeks to be approved. My husband returned to Ireland last week with the understanding that his mother would be placed in a particular nursing home. He went to visit it and really liked what he saw. When he spoke of money, he was told that his mum would pay €496 a week towards her care ; 80% would come from her pension and the rest would be equity from her house. When I applied for the ‘Fair Deal’, I was never told about any kind of loans or anything. So we were under the assumption that everything was okay. That was until we were told by the nursing home that we would have to sign a direct debit that it would take the €500 weekly out of Mrs Hegarty’s account. Again, we were upset by this, and my husband applied for the nursing home loan two days ago.

Friday was the day Kathleen was supposed to move into the home. Eventually, at 4.30pm Irish time, the nursing home called to say they were denying Kathleen a room as they would need a guarantee from the HSE that the loan would be processed. Then my husband said we would pay upfront for a few weeks until the loan comes through; again the word was no.

So now we are back at square one. We were told that if we turned down a room in a nursing home, we would have to pay CUH €1,400 a week as Kathleen would be taking up a bed in the acute care hospital and she is not an acute patient. Well, what happens when the nursing home denies her a bed, do they also have to pay CUH €1,400 a week?

So, CUH will not release her to her own home alone, a nursing home is refusing to take her and what happens to this lady?

If a bed comes up after Wednesday, we will not be in Ireland to sign any papers.

This is going to happen time and again due to the amount of people who emigrated like we did when there was no jobs in the 1980s.

Dorothy Murray

(ex Bishopstown, Cork)

Hickory Grade Road

Bridgeville PA 15017

USA