Nursing Home Scandal Coming Again

dundalkfc10

Leo just said he had never heard of this Nursing Homes details even though it was reported on Tuesday.

It's clear HSE and Govt are not working together or the Govt leaders are keeping things from each other

A complete **** show

Real Donald Trump

dundalkfc10 wrote: »

Leo just said he had never heard of this Nursing Homes details even though it was reported on Tuesday.

It's clear HSE and Govt are not working together or the Govt leaders are keeping things from each other

A complete **** show

Leo and Meehole don't seem to know much these past few days, between the tracing mess and now this...

Bannasidhe

dundalkfc10 wrote: »

Leo just said he had never heard of this Nursing Homes details even though it was reported on Tuesday.

It's clear HSE and Govt are not working together or the Govt leaders are keeping things from each other

A complete **** show

Regardless of who is in govt it is beyond ridiculous for the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to use an excuse of "I didn't know about xxxx until I got a text with a newspaper article" - who are their advisors? Why aren't they being kept up to date? How are the press better informed? Is ANYBODY in govt (and I include senior civil servants and paid advisors) paying attention?
What is the actual point of having a minister for Health?
Is there any blasted communication?

zerosugarbuzz

I am fully behind helping any nursing home that is currently in trouble in order to prevent death and suffering of their residents.

BUT, these private nursing homes make vast profits from the state and family's year after year and never have had any problem doing this. Yet they feel entitled to help to run their businesses when things go wrong. We need to look at and radically change the way we "look after" our old folk going forward. My parents and those of most of my friends were looked after by family in their old age. When exactly did working and earning money become more important than family.

crossman47

Amirani wrote: »

If Community Transmission is high, then Covid will get into nursing homes and this will happen; staff and residents will all infect each other.

The actual public health experts around the world have been equivocal on this, it's not possible to isolate and protect nursing home populations when you have widespread community transmission. Failing to contain community transmission is what caused this, not any specific failing on the part of the nursing home or the health service.

The inability to respond effectively to the outbreak is indicative of a poor resourced public health system and a lack of slack within the health service, which successive Governments have ignored.

That's exactly it. NPHET knew we were in trouble once they saw the data but Leo knew better. Covid will get into nursing homes once its rampant.

Feria40

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

I am fully behind helping any nursing home that is currently in trouble in order to prevent death and suffering of their residents.

BUT, these private nursing homes make vast profits from the state and family's year after year and never have had any problem doing this. Yet they feel entitled to help to run their businesses when things go wrong. We need to look at and radically change the way we "look after" our old folk going forward. My parents and those of most of my friends were looked after by family in their old age. When exactly did working and earning money become more important than family.

This is a TINY nursing home. At this level with less than 30 residents, the owner is likely able to achieve nothing more than the average industrial wage for him/herself each year. At best.

If the home has bank debt, with 30 residents it would be doing well to break even.

All the data available (I'm not googling for you) suggests that public homes are far more costly and poorly run than private.

The last HIQA report for this home highlighted how well looked after the residents said they felt and how happy they were in the home.

Looking for public help when your entire staff roster is down with a highly infectious disease seems reasonable to me

Amirani

By all accounts the HSE instructed some staff to go provide cover to this nursing home, but the staff didn't turn up.

Not that I'd blame them really. Essentially every patient in this nursing home is positive and its staffing has been decimated. Fairly easy to see how a HCA on a little over minimum wage, possibly with vulnerable family members at home would decide against going into an this situation. Hospitalisation probably the best option for many of the residents at this point.

DaSilva

Here come a bunch of people who are going to tell you this occurred because community transmission is too high and that is because too many people are having house parties.

The truth is this is inevitable because there are no mechanisms to prevent it, its just more likely to occur when community transmission is high, not exclusively when transmission is high.

There have been suggestions on how to reduce these situations to practically 0, like rapid daily testing and emergency recruitment of staff. Some people would rather the responsibility lay on the entire nation behaving themselves though, guaranteeing failure...

MOH

dundalkfc10 wrote: »

Leo just said he had never heard of this Nursing Homes details even though it was reported on Tuesday.

It's clear HSE and Govt are not working together or the Govt leaders are keeping things from each other

A complete **** show

Leo doesn't know what day of the week it is. Literally.

dundalkfc10

MOH wrote: »

Leo doesn't know what day of the week it is. Literally.

Completely lost it since his party's bad showing in the election

dhaughton99

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

I am fully behind helping any nursing home that is currently in trouble in order to prevent death and suffering of their residents.

BUT, these private nursing homes make vast profits from the state and family's year after year and never have had any problem doing this. Yet they feel entitled to help to run their businesses when things go wrong. We need to look at and radically change the way we "look after" our old folk going forward. My parents and those of most of my friends were looked after by family in their old age. When exactly did working and earning money become more important than family.

Also expecting staff to be exceptional people when the are making bare minimum wage. Although, they did get an extra 10c per hour last week.

ohnonotgmail

Feria40 wrote: »

This is a TINY nursing home. At this level with less than 30 residents, the owner is likely able to achieve nothing more than the average industrial wage for him/herself each year. At best.

If the home has bank debt, with 30 residents it would be doing well to break even.

All the data available (I'm not googling for you) suggests that public homes are far more costly and poorly run than private.

The last HIQA report for this home highlighted how well looked after the residents said they felt and how happy they were in the home.

Looking for public help when your entire staff roster is down with a highly infectious disease seems reasonable to me

at nearly a grand a week per resident i'm sure they are doing a little bit better than the average industrial wage.

Amirani

DaSilva wrote: »

There have been suggestions on how to reduce these situations to practically 0, like rapid daily testing and emergency recruitment of staff. Some people would rather the responsibility lay on the entire nation behaving themselves though, guaranteeing failure...

Trump and anyone going to the White House have been having daily antigen tests for months. Still had a massive superspreading event.

There's no silver bullet solution.

DaSilva

Amirani wrote: »

Trump and anyone going to the White House have been having daily antigen tests for months. Still had a massive superspreading event.

There's no silver bullet solution.

Actually they weren't doing daily testing it turns out, and I'm not suggesting its a silver bullet, I'm saying in addition to existing approaches, daily testing would have a significant impact on the chance of these outbreaks occuring

dundalkfc10

dundalkfc10 wrote: »

Not only should they have had, they promised us they would have contingencies in place

Jesus Chris you're like a broken record. Have you nothing else to say on the matter?

dundalkfc10

dundalkfc10 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/DrMartinDaly/status/1319199973104373760?s=19

This Govt need stopped before they ruin us for good.

Damn Government brought the Covid into the nursing home themselves?

This is actually a tragic story and not one to be used for political point scoring. I hope that they’ve gotten the help they so badly need.

Away With The Fairies

I'm confused how did it get into nursing homes again?

I read something about flying being safe and everyone wearing masks now and hardly anyone becoming infected because everyone wears masks and that's with people unknowingly having covid on the flight.

I read something a few weeks ago that staff in nursing homes don't have to wear PPE unless there's an outbreak in the nursing home. Surely at this stage it's far too late to be wearing masks?

If planes can prevent transmission, why can't nursing homes?

dundalkfc10

Deleted User wrote: »

Jesus Chris you're like a broken record. Have you nothing else to say on the matter?

What else is their to say, the Govt promised this wouldn't be let happen again, and of course its happened again

hmmm

It's been said a million times - if we don't control community transmission, it will get into locations with vulnerable people.

Unless someone has invented a forcefield, blaming the government for this is a bit rich.

SF supporters need to get a bit of cop on, we're in a national emergency and don't need your attempts to discredit the government at the moment.

Geuze

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

I'm confused how did it get into nursing homes again?

From staff and/or visitors.

dundalkfc10

dundalkfc10 wrote: »

What else is their to say, the Govt promised this wouldn't be let happen again, and of course its happened again

Once again we come back to the issue of responsibility. How did so many become infected? Over what timeframe? Is the nursing home private or HSE run? What measures have the nursing home in place to protect both residents and staff?

The Government can only do so much. It’s up to us all individually and collectively to do our utmost to protect ourselves and each other. Simple things, like wearing a mask to cover mouth AND nose. Washing or sanitise hands before leaving home and on entering any premises and on returning home again.

Government and NPHET likely don’t care. Gives them ammunition to keep saying its a deadly virus but not give enough details on the “deaths”.

Public support would be gone if nobody died.

MOH

hmmm wrote: »

SF supporters need to get a bit of cop on, we're in a national emergency and don't need your attempts to discredit the government at the moment.

The nursing is asking for government support in an emergency situation, which the government supposedly had a contingency plan for. Said support was not provided.

Even your desperate need to support the government can't alter facts.

nacho libre

is_that_so wrote: »

Not remotely. These are the facts - HIQA and the HSE oversee care homes. I've never subscribed to that grandstanding "holding to account" nonsense telegraphing events to people who are not actually involved with decisions. I don't hold the MoH to blame for something he had no connection to even though I think in general he's been poor.

Well that is the reality of politics whether you view it that way or not, ultimate responsibility is deemed to lay with politcians not the civil servants who run various departments. The politicians are generally happy to accept responsibility when it is to their advantage, but when it goes wrong someone else is to blame. The problem with viewing it as you do is that no one can ever be held to account, it's always put down to a systematic failure with the buck being passed backwards and forwards.

Larsso30

dundalkfc10 wrote: »

The Govt promised us they wouldn't allow something like this to happen again. They failed

I'd say FG will stay quiet on this and let Donnelly get ripped apart. Can't see him lasting another week

Private nursing homes have no responsibility no?

KennisWhale

Deleted User wrote: »

Government and NPHET likely don’t care. Gives them ammunition to keep saying its a deadly virus but not give enough details on the “deaths”.

Public support would be gone if nobody died.

Public support is rightly already dying.

125 people under the age of 65 have died with covid. This is in at least 7 months, as the HPSC reports started on 20 March (so would be approximately 214 in a year). For context, 95 people under the age of 65 died on the roads last year.

https://rsa.ie/Documents/Fatal%20Collision%20Stats/Provisional_Reviews_of_Fatal_Collisions/RRD_Res_20191231_RSAProvisionalReviewFatalities31December2019_03Jan2020.pdf

https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/casesinireland/epidemiologyofcovid-19inireland/COVID-19_Daily_epidemiology_report_(NPHET)_20201021%20-Website.pdf

zerosugarbuzz

Feria40 wrote: »

This is a TINY nursing home. At this level with less than 30 residents, the owner is likely able to achieve nothing more than the average industrial wage for him/herself each year. At best.

If the home has bank debt, with 30 residents it would be doing well to break even.

All the data available (I'm not googling for you) suggests that public homes are far more costly and poorly run than private.

The last HIQA report for this home highlighted how well looked after the residents said they felt and how happy they were in the home.

Looking for public help when your entire staff roster is down with a highly infectious disease seems reasonable to me

The average cost of a nursing home is between €850.00 and €1250.00 per week, multiply that by 30 and there would be a very good profit in the care they are providing.
It looks like a fairly simple bungalow type structure so not exactly luxury. The owners are running a business that makes a profit out of looking after elderly people. It is a business first and foremost, they need to take responsibility for their mistakes.
They had 8 months to learn and prepare for this. Given that they haven't, I one hundred per cent agree with looking after their clients for them but they need to learn as they clearly have made mistakes.

Dempo1

Hard to know what to make of this appalling situation. Frankly is doesn't matter a damn who runs this home, the HSE have an ultimate responsibility. There's a number of troubling aspects to this story. Firstly it was reported early on that THE GP who cares for a large portion of the residents received a very distressing call from a member of staff who essentially begged for assistance and stated she was overwhelmed and trying to keep residents alive. Then we learn from the Nurse manager (also now infected) that no assistance was forthcoming generally.

It was abundantly clear weeks ago, Nursing Homes needed to be monitored very carefully, this is the 4th serious outbreak in two weeks with a number of deaths. The HSE team run a very sleek PR machine, you've only got to watch their self indulgent weekly press conferences who appear to give an impression of how wonderful things are whilst bombarding the nation with mind numbing stats.

I'd like to know how was it possible almost the entire staff and residents got infected, I understood regular testing in place at nursing homes?

I've said numerous times, Paul Reid CEO of HSE is a total spoofer and is clearly out if his Depth, albeit now the pressure is on, its becoming evident with the contact tracing debacle over the weekend.

Mullingar Hospital is currently having millions spent on new buildings and upgrades and yet no support can be found for obviously struggling Nursing Homes. The arguments about them being privately run is irrelevant, over a Billion spent on wage subsidy schemes supporting private businesses.

HSE management & Government need to get thumbs out of bums and minds in neutral and immediately. Absolutely disgraceful this and other nursing home stories.

smck321

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

I'm confused how did it get into nursing homes again?

I read something about flying being safe and everyone wearing masks now and hardly anyone becoming infected because everyone wears masks and that's with people unknowingly having covid on the flight.

I read something a few weeks ago that staff in nursing homes don't have to wear PPE unless there's an outbreak in the nursing home. Surely at this stage it's far too late to be wearing masks?

If planes can prevent transmission, why can't nursing homes?

People that fly in planes sit in a seat, can use the toilet indepentently and don't need much help on average from cabin staff.

In nursing homes the residents are generally speaking quite dependent (hence why they are there) so you have people preforming personal care, shaving patiets, washing them, giving them tablets even helping feed some of them.

PPE will help but it just isn't possible to prevent all contact or close contact due to the limitations. Also chronic underfunding has put severe strain on the ability to fulfil what is required.

Working in a healthcare environment it can be easy to forget to wash your hands trying to juggle 20 or 30 patients at times.

wheresthebeef

This is a small family run nursing home. It’s most recent HIQA report was very detailed and demonstrated full compliance across all the standards including Infection Control. By all accounts a well run home with responsible owners.

The reason this happened so quickly is due to a number of reasons. Firstly, I’d guess with a home this small, there is no subdivisions within it so probably just one dining room, one or two day rooms, one staff room.
Staff in nursing homes are only tested once every 14 days. Nursing homes have asked for it to return to weekly testing which would catch cases sooner but the HSE don’t have capacity.
All staff are tested on one day and results come in over a period of 6-8 hours. A single positive amongst staff will trigger a blanket test of all residents.
Covid-19 can transmit and present asymptomatically even in older people. Due to high levels of community transmission, it is likely that a single staff member came to work, somewhere in the gap between testing days and seeded an outbreak which then moved through the home silently infecting people over a number of days.
On the next staff testing day, almost all the staff tested positive resulting in their exclusion from work and then the residents were tested and found to be similarly badly affected.
No contingency plan in the world could counteract a situation like this. Nursing homes have added extra staff to ensure adequate care if a number of staff need to be absent, but there’s no way you could employ a double set of staff for every home and keep a whole team in reserve.
People talking about nursing homes getting paid €1000 a week per resident have no clue how much it costs to run a home. That’s just over €5.90 an hour per resident. You wouldn’t get a babysitter for that money. 70% of income goes straight back into the hands of staff with all other overheads, costs and bank debts/interest etc... left to be covered from the remaining 30%. The huge nursing homes owned by international investment firms can make decent profits because of economy of scale where you have 120 beds or more.
The 28 people who live here are human beings who deserve to be cared for properly which this nursing home was doing as evidenced by their HIQA reports until their staff had to leave. The state has chosen to subcontract their care to someone else, but remains ultimately responsible.
There may be lessons to be learned but the outcry at this time should be for those poor older people lying scared in their beds wondering who will help them.

Rapid point of care testing could change this situation meaning you could catch cases far quicker before they have a chance to spread. Testing people only every 14 days is effectively useless.