Sir, – I refer to Paul Cullen’s article “Ageing population a challenge to services” (Home News, October 25th), which notes that every day over the next 10 years an additional seven older people in the Republic will require long-term residential care or home help.
This care time bomb has been coming a long time. The biggest threat to residential care of older people in Ireland is the massive shortage of nursing home beds that is going to occur in the next 10 years. The recent census indicates that the over-65 population is rising by 20,000 a year; over the next 10 years over 10,000 nursing home beds will be required. The Government is reducing its public nursing home bed provision as it is uneconomic to bring them up to the national minimum standards.
In addition, the private sector has no access to finance to build new nursing home beds to meet the coming demand due to the uncertainty the banks have regarding the continuity of the Nursing Home Fair Deal funding scheme.
What the Government has here is a “perfect storm” in relation to long-term nursing home provision. The State is reducing beds and cannot afford to build new nursing home beds, and the private sector cannot access finance to do the same. Unfortunately, the 2,500 older people per year requiring nursing home beds will end up in the acute hospital sector. The coming problem will not only affect older people but also younger people who require access to the same acute hospital beds.
The Government review of the Nursing Home Fair Deal scheme will be a wasted exercise if it does not address the problem of future nursing home bed provision and adequate home care for a growing over-65 population. – Yours, etc,