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More nursing home horror stories

  • 21-08-2008 9:40pm
    #1
    Firetrap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,442 ✭✭✭


    From RTE's website this evening
    Reports of poor care and allegations of abuse at a number of nursing homes in Donegal, Cork and Kerry have been obtained by RTÉ News.

    The reports, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, contain complaints made by families over the last three years about the level of care in both public and private homes.

    The first complaint concerned Falcarragh Community Hospital, a Health Service Executive run public nursing home in Co Donegal.

    A family complained that socks were put on their father's hands and arms and then tied together. He was also put facing the wall.

    Two nurses have admitted tying up the man.

    An investigation by the HSE upheld the complaint and sanctions were imposed on the staff involved.

    At the Hillcrest Nursing Home, a private home in Letterkenny, an elderly resident was found to have a broken shoulder two months after a fall at the home in 2006.

    A complaint by the woman's family, which was upheld, said they had made repeated calls for medical assistance after their mother complained regularly of pain.

    Following a HSE investigation, it found 'Hillcrest staff did not respond appropriately to repeated complaints of pain' by the family.

    Out of 76 complaints against 34 private nursing homes in Cork and Kerry, 64 were upheld.

    Staff education was recommended in a substantial number of the cases.

    As someone who's got a close relative who is very ill and is completely dependent on others, stories like these make my blood boil. The horrific truth is that if someone is unable to speak up for themselves, they are totally at the mercy of staff in nursing homes and in our hospitals.

    I don't want to come over like someone who's got a chip in their shoulder but the last couple of years have been a learning experience for my family. I now know for a fact that if you have a dependent loved one who has to go into hospital or into a nursing home, you have to watch things like a hawk. You can't depend on "caring" staff to take the time to feed them or clean them up or change incontinence pads.

    God help anyone who doesn't have family to fight their corner. I'm basing my experience, by the way, on two separate hospitals and a nursing home.


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