Letters to the Editor: No parallel between nursing homes and prisons

'Linking older peoples stay in a nursing homes to prison and describing it as “benign incarceration” is inaccurate and disrespectful to nursing home residents, staff and their families.'

Within her article, ‘ Even great nursing homes involve losing crucial everyday freedoms’, Irish Examiner, Jan 9, your columnist Terry Prone seeks to draw a parallel between nursing home care and prison.

Linking older peoples stay in a nursing homes to prison and describing it as “benign incarceration” is inaccurate and disrespectful to nursing home residents, staff and their families. Nursing homes are settings where the staff, family and friends bring love and respect on a daily basis to their elders. Nursing homes work because of the careful interaction and support and co-operation between all parties.

She states “as an older free citizen you do not have the right to endanger yourself or others”. I am not sure that any age group has a right to endanger others and hopefully we strive as a society to promote self-care. The comparison between an older person forgetting to turn off the hob, or the toaster, or gas fire as losing more rights than “if you’d mugged a tourist with a box cutter” is alarmist, extreme and offensive.

Let us look realistically at the quality of daily life in a nursing home setting in the Ireland of today.

What freedoms and rights are lost by being a resident, the reader can rightly ask. Terry talks about losing the choice of what to eat ie “toast or porridge”. The good news is in nursing homes you can have the breakfast you want, toast white or brown, porridge cornflakes, poached egg boiled egg, juice —similar to a hotel, with room service available. You go to bed when you like and get up when you like. Can you leave? Can you go out to the hairdresser, to lunch, to keep a health care appointment? Yes. Can you stay overnight with your family, for example, for Christmas, communions and occasions? Yes.

Is there a code on the door to exit? Yes. It is for the safety of residents who have dementia and would require support to leave the centre.

It is timely to remember that nursing home residents have medical issues that can limit freedoms: mobility, frailty, loss of mental capacity. Most residents have very high dependency care needs, requiring the support of nursing home staff to assist them in their daily living. A good nursing home will focus on assisting the residents to live the lives they want as best they can.

In almost every case I have seen in the last seventeen years working in the nursing home sector, it is medical necessity that prompts the painful realisation that 24-hour care is the best and probably only option available. I can assure the readers that the nursing home option is always the last resort. I don’t disagree that it should be. In my own experience in providing nursing home care, older people are coming to nursing home care probably a year later than they should. It was no different for my own mother who was a resident for five years in Powdermill. The ageing journey is challenging but the spirit of the Irish people is to make the best of your situation and go forward.

Terry states with confidence that the Government does not want to care for people in nursing homes in the future, citing the closure of smaller nursing homes as justifying such a policy. Assuming the Government are serious about this and delivering 24-hour care to a very vulnerable cohort in their homes, has anyone seen a plan? 24-hour care is far different from two, four, or even six hours’ home help. There is no government scheme providing 24-hour nursing care in a person’s home. The home help scheme is an incredibly valuable support system but it never was — and never could be — 24 hour care.

Perhaps the author should visit a prison and a nursing home to keep herself informed. A word of caution, Terry; they are not the same.

Joe Peters

General Manager

Powdermill Nursing Home

Co Cork

Taxpayers pick up the €2.5bn tab for shoddy construction work

Another €2.5bn goes into the pot, courtesy of Irish taxpayers, to pay for shoddy work carried out by shoddy builders using shoddy materials, who presumably we will be getting to fix the problems they created, as there are not enough honest builders to go around.

At this rate, we’ll soon be shelling out more money to the construction industry than we paid out to the bankers.

It’s sweet work, if you are on one receiving end, rather than the other.

Liam Power

Dundalk

Co Louth

Public transport is just a vehicle to spread disease

We are facing the threat of more and more diseases.

Squeezing dozens to hundreds of humans into travelling metal tubes and boxes is an utter farce in this very real and deteriorating future.

Dan FitzGerald

Douglas

Cork city

Different rules for the public and the ruling classes

Recent media reports have brought to our attention that Robert Troy resigned as junior minister for state after failing to declare property interests on the Dáil register, Mr Troy described these failures as “omissions and errors”; Stephen Donnelly called his failure to renew a rental property with the RTB “an oversight”; Damien English resigned as minister for state after giving incorrect information to Meath County Council for a planning application saying “I apologise for doing so”; and Paschal Donohoe “apologises” over undeclared election expenses.

The above use of language is a masterclass in obfuscation.

It is an offence to give incorrect information in a planning case as is failing to register a rental property with the RTB; the latter punishable by a €,4000 fine or a six-month jail term. Words like ‘omissions and errors’, ‘oversight’ and apologies serve to fog the real meaning of these actions. It appears that there is one rule for politicians and one for everyone else.

Rory O’Callaghan

Dublin 6

Fitness not the issue in recruiting gardaí

The recent excuse put forward by Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan for the failure to recruit more gardaí is a non-runner — ‘ One-sixth of aspiring gardaí fail fitness test’ (Irish Examiner, January 18).

The physical fitness test that all recruits must undergo is a standard that has to be attained.

We’re not talking about the Army Ranger wing level of fitness here.

The biggest reason we’ve seen a fall off on recruitment is that resignations have been all too common because of a decimated pension; miniscule gratuity; excessive oversight; heavier workloads that are burying garda members under tons of paperwork; answering nonsensical queries on the Pulse system, and the constant fear of facing disciplinary action or long suspensions if they don’t comply with all that’s demanded of them.

This is the truth that’s facing our recruits and probationers today.

Using the excuse of fitness as the primary reason is only part of the overall problem young members of the force face.

Unless we see changes how new recruits and probationers are dealt with, we will see further resignations and a force unable to meet its commitments.

Christy Galligan (Retd AGS)

Letterkenny

Co Donegal

Government failing on its defence remit

Sean O’Riordan’s excellent article — ‘ Sleepwalking towards defence staffing crisis’ ( Irish Examiner, January 16) — and your editorial — ‘Defence Forces funding: Staffing stifled’ (January 17) — highlights the continuing failure by government to address the serious crisis in the Defence Forces.

Notwithstanding many warnings, a commission report, and commentary in the media, government have failed to tackle the core issue of pay, allowances, and pensions for Defence Force members. Retention will remain problematic until such time as the offering is fit for purpose.

The first duty of government is to protect its citizens and the State. Given that every Defence Force unit is under strength, a barely functioning Naval Service and Air Corps, it’s clear that government is failing in its duty.

Conor Hogarty

Blackrock, Co Dublin

Thunberg hauled away by riot police

Most times when you see four masked men carrying a young woman away you would ring the police but this time it was the police doing the carrying and they were riot police.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and others were taken away when they were protesting outside the German village of Lützerath.

They were taking part in protests against the destruction of the village to facilitate the expansion of a coal mine. 

Maybe rather than ‘bravely’ carrying away a little girl they should listen to her because it appears few people are really aware of the dangers and destruction in the search for non-renewable energy sources.

Let’s be brave enough to accept that there is climate change and damage to the environment and try to find solutions.

Dennis Fitzgerald

Vic Melbourne

Australia

Legalise cannabis and take away the control of gangsters

The issue of the legalisation of cannabis highlights the clash between Ireland’s young, progressive electorate and an old, Catholic establishment. The outcome is inevitable but while weak politicians procrastinate, the gangsters take control of our streets with violence and exploitation of children the result.

Legalisation of cannabis will enable control of the market. It won’t eliminate all harm but it will minimise it. Cannabis isn’t going away and the more harmful you think it is, the more irresponsible it is to leave the gangsters in control.

Legalise, regulate, and tax cannabis. Stop wasting so much money on futile enforcement and protect our communities rather than abandoning them.

Peter Reynolds

Knocknagoshel

Co Kerry