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THE STATE HAS been accused of covering up the real costs of public nursing home care.
Nursing Homes Ireland, which represents nursing homes across the country, says an up to date list of fees has not been published since 2011.
It’s CEO Tadhg Daly said: “The transparency and accountability applied to private and voluntary nursing homes in respect of cost of care is completely absent for HSE nursing homes.
“Repeated representations to the Department of Health and HSE have promised publication of costs but these have never materialised.
The real cost of public nursing home care is being hidden. The average cost in March 2011 was €1,245 per week per resident in HSE nursing homes which was 40% above that applied for private and voluntary counterparts.
NHI is calling on the Minister for Health to release the details immediately so that families can make informed decisions on the care of their loved ones.
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Public Nursing homes are very much more expensive than private homes to run. However, typically there are very significant differences in the patients moved to public homes in Ireland. They are usually a lot more dependent, are more likely to have complex needs such as feeding tubes and are more likely to be cognitively impaired. Thus the staffing ratios are higher. It’s also worth pointing out that public homes almost never decline to take a patient, private homes frequently do so.
Nursing home my eye. When the time comes I’m moving around my kids homes, let them see what it’s like to look after someone. My nappy days will be my revenge.
“I don’t know officer, we came in this morning and he had this pillow on his face”
Glen you could also wake them up several times a night just so they don’t get a proper nights sleep before a hard day at work .( might as well give them the full experience )
I’ll stand over them at 3 in the morning with my nappy hanging low and my false teeth dangling, muttering something like Quincy said hello.
And what if you have dementia Glen?
When you keep insisting upon walking out of the house and decide to beat your kids up for trying to stop you (because you can’t understand that they’re trying to help you), unfortunately the people who are in nursing home care are there because caring for them at home isn’t really in their best interests, they need a nurse on call 24/7, and a load of carers and activities to keep them occupied, fed, washed and kept safe.
My mother is in a private nursing home, costing us €1400 plus the fair deal scheme. We looked after her at home for 8 years but it got to the point we could not give her the medical care she needed. This is not an easy decision for any family and families are shocked with the prices, I can’t really understand how it costs so much. Thankfully she’s settled there, I won’t say happy because we just don’t know.
Cheapest 3* Hotel in Dublin is about €1100 per week, that’s without 24 hour nursing care and meals. It just costs a lot to provide this level of care. What’s more with the welcome introduction of HIQA inspections and regulations it’s almost impossible for homes to cut corners.
A bigger issue is where a resident gets sick and they are shipped off to the local hospital but the family have to still pay the Nursing home
I seen one case where the resident was in hospital for 8 weeks and the family hand still to pay the full price for the nursing home bed while the nursing home was saving costs
If they could not charge for the bed they would not be so quick at shipping people off to hospital
And you don’t want your relative in hospital.
The nurses there simply don’t have the time and there’s not nearly as many carers. Every time I’ve seen a resident leave for the hospital, when they come back they’ve worsened dramatically – pressure sores and infections are quite common, but not something I would hold against the hospital staff. They don’t have carers to ensure bed bound residents are moved as often. They barely have time to be nurses they’re so overworked.
Plus – that bed needs to be paid for the same way toy get no respite in your rent when you go on holiday. Their stuff is still stored there, the room can’t be used. And I would imagine the heating bills alone in a nursing home would eat into a huge chunk of their income. Never mind the insurance costs, the staff tend to be paid a pittance.
Can anybody please tell me why it it not a feasible option for families to be helped financially to keep and care for their loved ones at home, it would cut costs of expensive nursing homes and be a better option for the patients too. Or is it better to give jobs and big money to “the boys and girls” at the expense of the elderly people who made us the people we are.
There aren’t many carers at HSE nursing homes on ‘big money’!
Some people like us live in the states and my mother in law has no family in Ireland. She has dementia and we had home help for a few years until she fell and broke her hip. She is very happy where she is.
Not everyone has ANY family to do this. Also even if they do, family member (s) may be unable or unwilling to do so. We don’t all come from big, happy families
They do with Carers Allowance on top of existing social welfare payments,housing adaption schemes and respite care grants. Were are the economies of scale and specialist 24hr care etc at home. Nursing Homes are a last resort and I can only imagine the costs under your scheme everyone under the sun would claim for there pension aged mother or father.
Do you think we should cut out schools too and teach our children at home, sure we made them.
People in nursing homes don’t tend to be there without good reason. These are people who need round the clock care.
A lot of people try, they do their absolute best to keep their loved ones at home for as long as possible, but it’s a double edged sword with something like dementia – the further the disease progresses, the less likely they are to ever settle in to a nursing home.
Some dementia patients can become violent with what seems like no provocation – this can be quite scary. But it’s not their fault.
Believe me, carers are not paid nearly enough for the job that they do. I have friends who have had bones broken and stitches needed after unprovoked attacks by demented residents in their care, and they barely earn more than minimum wage. That includes 12 hour shifts and quite unsociable hours.
Until you’ve spent a considerable amount of time in a nursing home you never quite appreciate the amount of work that those nurses and carers do. Foe someone to elect to do all of that themselves at home, the carers allowance is a joke, and the supports offered to carers in this state are abysmal.
Hey,
The minister for health can’t release the facts and figures because he simply doesn’t have them and most likely never will.
This is another example of the permanent government operation their way, at their speed to suit and protect themselves and their so called careers.
What a mess!!!
I spent two years working in a private nursing home and in most cases it would have taken years for a family to finally admit to themselves that a loved one needed to be moved to a nursing home.
It’s a very hard decision to come to financial and emotionally.
You feel like you’ve failed and you’ve let the person down.
When the point comes to admit them they are usually at the point of not being able to communicate to you if they are happy or not.
The charges are very high but it literally is 24 hour care from a nurse to care staff to cleaners,chef and medication
The average wage for a nurse is €600 a week in private nursing homes
Care staff is €350 and cleaners the same so you can see how the costs soon add up.
Probably sell them under TTIP with the help of the IMF in the near future…
have your say