Irish Examiner view: Disturbing revelations by RTÉ Investigates about nursing homes

As consultant geriatrician David Robinson said: 'It’s abuse — there’s no other word for it' 

'RTÉ Investigates: Inside Ireland's Nursing Homes' was broadcast on RTÉ1 last night and is available on the RTÉ Player.

The revelations in the  RTÉ Investigates programme about the standard of care in some private nursing homes were deeply disturbing.

Readers may be aware of some of the cases of neglect cited in those investigations, of vulnerable elderly people being abandoned or ignored, left at risk of dangerous falls, or in some cases left in unchanged incontinence pads.

Little wonder that David Robinson, a consultant geriatrician at St James’s Hospital in Dublin, described the situation as such : “It’s abuse — there’s no other word for it.”

He is absolutely correct.

It would be grimly fascinating to hear someone make a counter-argument that the treatment shown somehow does not constitute abuse.

It is no slight on the journalists involved, however, to say that while these specific instances are shocking, they are hardly surprising.

On a regular basis, we are reminded that whether it is young children in creches, teens reported as missing from Tusla care, and now the abuse of the elderly, our citizens are regularly betrayed by the systems and structures set up to care for them.

In the specific area of elder care, older readers may remember other shocking revelations 20 years ago in the case of the Leas Cross nursing home, revelations which led to calls for legislation and enforcement to ensure that never happened again.

Judging by this week’s revelations, nothing has changed,

That is not the only question facing the State.

The bland apologies of the corporate owners of the homes are as meaningless as they are predictable, but it has emerged that Hiqa inspected the homes concerned repeatedly in recent years — with the most recent inspection of one home finding that the institution was “short-staffed”, with some residents who were at a high risk of malnutrition.

It seems surprising that swifter action was not taken in this particular instance.

Then again, the impending excavation of the Tuam babies’ burial ground this week reminds us that the State can fail its citizens no matter what age they are.

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Shameful obstruction of Leona Macken

Earlier this week, the HSE apologised to Leona Macken in court over “failings” which occurred in caring for her.

Ms Macken and her husband Alan had taken an action against the HSE, and the court heard evidence which indicated that her 2016 and 2020 smear tests by Quest Diagnostics should not have been reported as negative.

The court concluded that the delay in identifying pre-cancerous abnormalities led to her cancer diagnosis.

A mother of two young daughters, she now has incurable metastatic cancer.

This is clearly a nightmare for the Macken family, and huge credit is due to Leona Macken for her bravery — not only in pursuing this action, but in advocating strongly that other women go for smear tests. She has pointed out in interviews that while those tests did not work for her, they can work for other people.

Minister for health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill also apologised to Ms Macken this week, and added: “She should not have had to fight for her records.

“They need a resolution to their case, and they do not need additional stress through going through the court process,” she said.

This was a reference to Ms Macken having to fight for an audit of her records, something which — as pointed out by the minister — was bound to cause additional stress at a severely testing time for the family.

This unwillingness to co-operate with individuals seeking answers has uncomfortable echoes in a case which was in the headlines last week. The O’Farrell family, of Monaghan, spent almost 15 years seeking information from several State agencies about the man who killed their son and brother Shane in a hit-and-run incident, only to be stonewalled by many of those agencies.

This form of reflexive obstruction is shameful and seems driven by an overwhelming urge to protect institutions at all costs, irrespective of the stress that that puts on individuals.

Ms Macken’s grace and dignity this week, and her attitude, should embarrass those who placed that stress on her.

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True community pub in Kerry

The story coming out of deepest south Kerry has something of the Ealing comedies about it. A community is downhearted by the prospect of losing its pub, only to rally to the cause and buy it.

Things looked grim when Humphrey Ó Conchuir and Noreen Uí Chonchuir, towners of the Inny Tavern (Tábhairne na hÚine) in Dromaid, south Kerry, decided to retire. A lack of prospective buyers seemed to doom the establishment to dereliction but Forbairt na Dromoda Teo — the local community social enterprise organisation — stepped in.

It raised enough funds for a deposit, as well as securing a bank loan for the property. When there was a shortfall, they launched a GoFundMe campaign, which has generated almost €107,500 to date.

Some of that support has come from ex-pats, but some has also come from people who have seen similar facilities disappear in their own part of Ireland and who don’t want the same to happen elsewhere. 

Not every community has that kind of support — or an organisation with the drive of Forbairt na Dromoda Teo — but it is good to see a rural area make a stand against decline and depopulation.