Sir, – I refer to Paul Cullen’s article (Front page, July 29th) advising that the number on waiting lists for nursing homes is set to double by year’s end.
The nursing home time bomb in relation to older person’s access to nursing home beds has been building now for the past number of years and will become acute very shortly. Approximately 5 per cent of the over-65 population require nursing home care, but the recent census indicates this population is rising by 20,000 per annum, and as a result over the next 10 years another 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 national minimum standards and this is the correct approach to ensure proper care for older people. 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 Fair Deal funding scheme, the review of which has been kicked down the road by the Government.
The moral hazard that the Government is facing is that families with older relatives who require nursing home care will now go directly to the acute hospital system as it will be perceived as the quickest way of getting access to a nursing home bed for a relative. This in turn will only aggravate the shortage in the acute hospital sector and therefore the coming problem will not only affect older people but younger people requiring access to the same acute hospital beds.
Successive governments have been aware of the “nursing home time bomb” for some time and they have respectively stuck their heads in the sand in dealing with this growing problem. – Yours, etc,
JONATHON ROTH (Dr),
Clancys Strand, Limerick.
Sir, – Thank you for highlighting the pernicious situation whereby families who are unable to care for their elderly put them into a private nursing home on the “understanding” that they will be transferred to a public nursing home in a matter of weeks (Front page, July 29th). There are families who are being wiped out financially as weeks turn into months. This is a very sensitive and difficult area for the families to speak about publicly. – Yours, etc,
DERMOT KIRWAN,
Friends of the Elderly,
Bolton Street, Dublin 1.