Heartbreaking is the word most often used by the smaller, family-run nursing homes that are being forced to close their doors due to rising costs and regulatory pressures. The problem has become more acute this year as increasing electricity and gas prices combined with the escalating costs of upgrading and maintaining what are in many cases old buildings to meet strict regulations are pushing nursing homes out of the business.
Castleturvin House Nursing Home, a 42-bedroom nursing home in Athenry, Co Galway – run by the Killeen family – and New Lodge, a 24-bed home in Rathfarnham, south Dublin, originally founded by the Quakers, are the latest homes to say that they will close. Both have cited the pressure from the revisions and pace of regulatory compliance. For smaller, standalone homes, sitting outside a chain of facilities, the costs just don’t make sense. Coming after the Covid-19 pandemic, which inflicted a heavy toll on nursing homes, the rising pressure to apply demanding modern healthcare regulations to older properties is too much for some.
Unlike chains of nursing home, smaller nursing homes don’t have the economies of scale to make their businesses viable, but even the healthcare groups are struggling with soaring costs.
Nursing home regulator, the Health Information and Quality Authority, has said 29 nursing homes with fewer than 40 beds closed their doors between 2018 and 2021. The trend has continued this year with the number of closures already into double digits. The industry has called for Government support to survive the energy costs crisis and greater fairness in the Fair Deal scheme, the State’s subsidy system.
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The loss of smaller homes robs communities of employment, forcing relatives and residents to travel further. It deprives residents of visits, social activities and links to their preferred doctors or pharmacists. Further closures will also heap more pressure on hospitals, with the loss of essential step-down beds to sustain the flow of patients out of the public health system.