Sir, – I refer to Paul Cullen's article regarding the possible closure in July of 2,500 public nursing home beds due to a failure to meet national nursing home standards ("Nursing home beds may close", Front Page, January 16th).
I find it incredible that Minister of State for Primary Care Kathleen Lynch would say that the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has agreed to extend the application of the standards to public homes by three years.
Where does this leave the 500-odd private nursing homes that have had to borrow to upgrade their homes to meet the standards, on pain of closure? They did not have the luxury of a Minister to waive national standards that are supposed to apply to all. Also, where does it leave the residents in public nursing homes who will now have to reside in nursing homes that do not meet national standards?
It looks like one rule for the State and one rule for the private sector, again. – Yours, etc,
PERCY BOLAND,
Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.