HSE nursing homes - charges, service provided and charitable donations

BrianD3

The HSE nursing home closest to me charges over 2000 euros per week under the Fair Deal, this is over double what private nursing homes nearby charge. This HSE home is seemingly immune from criticism in the community and sainthood is ascribed to the staff working there.

There is also a fundraising group in the community for the facility which has been going for many years, I think it is to provide small items to make life a little more bearable for the residents.

A few years ago, a relative of mine was discharged from hospital to this facility and there were many aspects of it that were unsatisfactory. One example - TV. Crappy small TVs with Saorview and missing remote controls, I queried why this was and the excuse was that visitors kept stealing the remotes so they wouldn't be provided again. This may sound trivial but for someone who is bed bound and can do little else than watch TV, this was a quality of life issue. Simply not good enough. There were other similar things too but that is just an example.

2000+ euros per week for that and I predict that Covid and PPE/cleaning requirements (which should have been there all along for norovirus and flu outbreaks etc.) will now be used to jack up the charge further.

At the time my relative was a resident, I queried why the Fair Deal charge (publicly available info for public and private homes) was over double that of the private homes and they got pretty defensive. Reasons given were:

"the private homes have fewer staff".

Really? Well the HSE nursing home staff and management were constantly complaining about how understaffed it was. So the private homes are worse again, they must be truly awful in that case.

"The private homes have additional charges on top of the Fair Deal charge"

So did the public home, maybe not to the same extent. Anyway it doesn't come close to explaining the discrepancy.

"Public homes have higher dependency residents"

May be true, I don't know

I think the fundamental issue here is the majority of residents/their families didn't have much means so were paying very little under the Fair Deal. If your means assessment results in you paying 200 quid or less per week, you'd probably think it was a great facility and wouldn't question anything. Also, many residents would have paid very little income tax over their lifetimes, be on non contributory pensions etc. 2000+ euro per week is not on their radar and even if it were, it would be an issue for other people i.e. those with means and "the taxpayer".

However its not just those of little means who are seemingly unaware, I mentioned these nursing home charges to a consultant geriatrician recently - someone who is very well paid from the public purse and is involved in discharging patients from an acute hospital to nursing homes. I told this person the figure of over 2000 euros. They expressed shock that it was that much per month :rolleyes: I then had to explain.