Madam, - Like many of your readers I am appalled at the quality of care being provided to our older citizens in some of our nursing homes. The recent excellent investigative journalism seems to suggest that private, profit-making nursing homes have greater problems in providing quality care. One cannot, of course, be certain that care at public nursing homes in Ireland is any better, inspection is not undertaken in any reliable fashion. None the less, international research suggests a relationship between the ownership of nursing homes and quality of care.
The most recent research was published in April in the Journal of Medical Research and Review by investigators at the University of Toronto. They examined the quality of care as assessed in a total of 38 studies covering thousands of homes in the US and Canada over a 12-year period. They found that residents of for-profit nursing homes were more likely to receive sub-standard care than residents of not-for-profit homes. The authors found that for-profit facilities provided fewer skilled staff and had a higher nursing aide turnover.
While factors apart from ownership give rise to poor care, the Government should be aware of such research when it deliberates on the future of care for our elderly population. - Yours, etc.,
Dr JOHN BARTON, Consultant Physician, Chairman, Health Services Action Group, Ballinasloe, Co Galway.
Madam, - My father has been living in a nursing home in the mid-west for the past year. When I visited him the day after the Prime Time programme he was visibly dejected. He told me that the carers in his home were upset at the blanket coverage in the media and the gratuitous impression being given that all nursing homes were like Leas Cross.
There needs to be some a restraint among politicians and journalists to allow a balanced view of the private nursing-home sector and the thousands of kind and decent people who provide care in them. - Yours, etc,
TONY SHAW, Wilfield, Sandymount Avenue, Dublin 4.