Terry Prone: Abuse of nursing home patients has been going on for decades

Profit is king when it comes to the running of our nursing homes

'Any of us of the age when we might be “put in a nursing home” due to a stroke or a fall, have been terrified by what RTÉ found.'

The woman who looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, was sitting at her kitchen table and had telephoned the presenter of Ireland’s most popular radio show. She took a deep breath and explained why.

Some months previously, a stroke had felled her father, leaving him speechless with his movement gravely constrained down one side. This was, she told Gay, a man who loved to walk and suddenly he couldn’t do that. A man with words at will because of his academic background, and now he didn’t have words at all. When Gay asked a question, she shook her head. No, she said. They had tried asking her Dad to write down the words he couldn’t say but it didn’t work.