A GALWAY consultant has suggested that the State’s attempt to improve standards of healthcare may be leading to a closure of long-stay wards in public hospitals.
Dr Shaun O’Keeffe, consultant in geriatric medicine at Merlin Park Hospital, said medical professionals believed hospital management was finding it “easier to let wards close” than to meet the targets required by the Health Information Quality Authority (Hiqa).
Dr O'Keeffe was speaking at The Irish Times/Pfizer Health Forum in NUI Galway last night.
The debate on the theme of The Ignored Demographic – Older People in Irelandwas chaired by Irish Times assistant editor Fintan O'Toole. Panel members were Dr O'Keeffe, Minister of State for Older People Áine Brady, Age Action chief executive Robin Webster and Active Retirement chief executive Maureen Kavanagh.
Dr O’Keeffe also highlighted difficulties with the Government’s Fair Deal scheme for financing nursing home care, and said that he was most concerned about its impact on public long-stay beds.
“There is a cohort of patients whose specific needs are best met in public long-stay units,” he said, although private nursing homes did a “marvellous job”.
Ms Brady said Hiqa was “not going around condemning buildings” and was committed to “patient-centred care”, including activities for older people. Nor was the Government “driving people away from public to private facilities,” she said. She acknowledged a “major glitch” with Fair Deal in relation to younger people requiring nursing home care.
“We need to be prepared for an increase in the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia,” she added. She was concerned that the recession would have “as little impact as possible” on services for older people.
A number of participants in the audience, including healthcare professionals, voiced criticism of the lack of adequate resources, specifically the lack of vital therapies available to people in private nursing homes, including physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
Ms Kavanagh said the recession had hit many of her members, with the carbon tax and prescriptions costs eating into the budgets of older people on limited incomes.