Madam, - Like many of your readers I am appalled at the quality of care being provided to older citizens in some nursing homes.
The recent suspension of contracting beds in private nursing homes by the HSE is of deep concern. It appears that private, profit-making nursing homes have greater difficulty in providing quality care. One cannot, of course, be certain that care at public nursing homes in Ireland is any better since inspection is not undertaken in any reliable fashion. But international research suggests a relationship between the ownership of nursing homes and the quality of care.
Research published in April 2005 in the Journal of Medical Research and Review by investigators at the University of Toronto and in June 2006 by the journal Health Affairs from Yale University suggests that care in for-profit nursing homes is of lower quality.
The Toronto researchers assessed the quality of care in 32 studies covering thousands of nursing 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 substandard care than residents of not-for-profit homes. The authors found that for-profit facilities provided fewer skilled staff and had a higher turnover of nursing assistants. In an analysis of 20 studies on nursing home care, the Yale researchers found that for-profit nursing homes had lower costs and greater efficiency but had worse care and more adverse outcomes for residents.
While factors apart from ownership give rise to poor care, the Government and opposition parties should be aware of such facts when they deliberate on the future of care for our elderly population. - Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN BARTON,
Ballinasloe,
Co Galway.