Mary Harneys stealth tax on the Elderly that slipped through.

Run_to_da_hills

This was a very sneaky move by the Minister of Health that slipped through virtually in noticed, perhaps the atrocities in the North took much of the media attention.

"NURSING HOMES, both public and private, will have to pay thousands of euro in annual fees to cover the cost of a new independent nursing homes inspection regime being put in place from July, it was confirmed yesterday.

The annual fee payable has been set at €190 per bed in each home, which means an average- sized private nursing home with 40-50 beds will have to pay €7,600-€9,500 to the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) which will carry out the inspections"

Tadhg Daly, chief executive of Nursing Homes Ireland, said the fee would have to be passed on to residents. He said his organization wanted to meet Ms Harney on the issue.

My Dad is paying in excess of 5000 Euro a month for his wife in private nursing home, the home dose not need these extravagant "red tape" inspections. Why should he be penalised further.

For those whose pensions have evaporated due to the recent financial scandals will be hit further with this tax on the elderly along with many that have already lost there medical cards.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2009/0310/1224242567722.html

shqipshume

That's an absolute disgrace.That woman is a snake in the grass.Time she was forced to get out :mad:

Blazer

I wish the fat bitch would suffer multiple heart attacks and spend a few days just thrown on a trolley in a hospital.
Maybe then she'll understand how she completely brought the health service to it's knees.

mumhaabu

I bet she has private health insurance

yoshytoshy

Could anyone imagine mary harney in a public hospital ?

It would be like sending a cow into an abattoir.

shqipshume

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

I wish the fat bitch would suffer multiple heart attacks and spend a few days just thrown on a trolley in a hospital.
Maybe then she'll understand how she completely brought the health service to it's knees.

Could never happen,she hasnt got one

mickoneill30

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

My Dad is paying in excess of 5000 Euro a month for his wife in private nursing home, the home dose not need these extravagant "red tape" inspections. Why should he be penalised further.

So which homes do need these inspections? Should we just wait for the prime time investigations like we've being doing in the past?

nesf

Eh, we want an independently funded inspection team analysing these homes especially the public ones, or have people so quickly forgotten some of the atrocious incidents that have been uncovered in the past?

John_C

I haven't had time to read through this thread fully. Has anyone made a joke about Harney's appearance yet? I feel that it would be relevant.

Sand

Theres no such thing as stealth taxes these days. Taxes are going up. Spending is going down. You will be taxed. It wont be subtle. Deal with it.

Run_to_da_hills

Sand wrote: »

Theres no such thing as stealth taxes these days. Taxes are going up. Spending is going down. You will be taxed. It wont be subtle. Deal with it.

I know will Ill be taxed and it is expected of but hitting out at the most vulnerable in society again is absurd particularly when so many of them have lost most of their life savings due to corporate unsupervised recklessness.

Mr.Micro

I have just received a cheque book and the bank took 12.5 euro Gov. duty (used to be 2.50 ) now that is a stealth tax because I was not expecting it.

The fees are outrageous in the nursing/residential homes that rose with the boom. The only good thing is that inspections will be done and the rights,comfort,wellbeing etc of the residents will be monitored which is only a good thing, and will help to police the cowboys operating some of these homes.

Dannyboy83

mumhaabu wrote: »

I bet she has private health insurance

Who doesn't?

Dannyboy83

Is it an involuntary inspection?

Or is it possible to opt out?

nesf

Right, I've deleted one libellous post. Seriously it's one think to indulge in infantile name calling it's quite another to accuse any public figure of corruption.

The former is bad enough, the latter is utterly unacceptable and bans will be handed out if people start indulging in it.

Mr.Micro

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Is it an involuntary inspection?

Or is it possible to opt out?

All public and private nursing homes will be required under law to meet 32 new standards from the start of July.

The new inspection system was announced today by Minister for Health Mary Harney.

Residents will have a right to a written contract of care, privacy and dignity and to be cared for in a safe, hygienic facility.
Advertisement

Under the new system, all nursing homes will have to be registered and pay €500 for this every three years.

To help fund the inspection system, all nursing homes will also have to pay a charge of €190 a year for each patient.

Nursing Homes Ireland said that for an average 50-bed nursing home, the new annual licensing fee of €190 a bed would mean an extra cost of almost €10,000 a year.

Minister Harney said she accepted that the fees will be passed on to residents.

Nursing Homes Ireland says the new charges are being introduced without consultation.

It says it would like a meeting with the Minister to discuss the changes.

The charges will also cost the HSE an extra €1.9m a year for its public nursing homes.

The inspections will be operated by the social services division of the Health Information and Quality Authority.

The Authority will have the power to close a nursing home that fails to meet the new standards.

Residents will be entitled to an assessment of their needs before they move to a home and there are new rules on the use of restraint.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0309/nursing.html

The_Minister

mumhaabu wrote: »

I bet she has private health insurance

Probably, but both her parents spent most of their lives in the public health system, and both died there.

You have to remember that she came from a fairly poor background, so she would have spent time in the public system.


Oh, and why the f*ck shouldn't nursing homes pay for their own inspectorate?
Just a short while ago everyone was going nuts because of Leas Cross, why should the general taxpayer foot the bill?

nesf

Mr.Micro wrote: »

All public and private nursing homes will be required under law to meet 32 new standards from the start of July.

The new inspection system was announced today by Minister for Health Mary Harney.

Residents will have a right to a written contract of care, privacy and dignity and to be cared for in a safe, hygienic facility.
Advertisement

Under the new system, all nursing homes will have to be registered and pay €500 for this every three years.

To help fund the inspection system, all nursing homes will also have to pay a charge of €190 a year for each patient.

Nursing Homes Ireland said that for an average 50-bed nursing home, the new annual licensing fee of €190 a bed would mean an extra cost of almost €10,000 a year.

Minister Harney said she accepted that the fees will be passed on to residents.

Nursing Homes Ireland says the new charges are being introduced without consultation.

It says it would like a meeting with the Minister to discuss the changes.

The charges will also cost the HSE an extra €1.9m a year for its public nursing homes.

The inspections will be operated by the social services division of the Health Information and Quality Authority.

The Authority will have the power to close a nursing home that fails to meet the new standards.

Residents will be entitled to an assessment of their needs before they move to a home and there are new rules on the use of restraint.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0309/nursing.html

Harney mentioned on Q&A that private homes were already paying out €65 per bed per annum to their professional organisation, and I'd be surprised if this isn't already passed onto patients.

djpbarry

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

Maybe then she'll understand how she completely brought the health service to it's knees.

:rolleyes: Did she indeed. I'm by no means Ms. Harney's biggest fan, but refusing to recognise that our health system is far from terrible is not exactly constructive.

Sand wrote: »

Theres no such thing as stealth taxes these days. Taxes are going up. Spending is going down. You will be taxed. It wont be subtle. Deal with it.

Fascist.

Daithinski

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

...The annual fee payable has been set at €190 per bed in each home, ...

The very fact that this "fee" (stealth tax) is charged on a per head basis suggests that is had been designed as a stealth tax. It makes it extremely simple and plausible for the home to pass this on. "its a government charge per head, so we're just chargin you".

Surely the amount of time taken per inspection will not be 10 times more for a 100 bed home over a 10 bed home?

Why can't they make a charge based on the square footage of the home, or a charge based on the numbers of beds

ie 10 beds to 50 beds x amount, 50-100 bed x amount etc?

The reason of course is that it wouldn't generate the same money for the government.

The per head charge is a clever way of extracting a set figure from a certain sector of society. ie Numbers of beds x 190 euro = xxx millions.

sceptre

I'm playing devil's advocate here to a certain extent but here's why a per head charge is potentially fairer

Daithinski wrote: »

Surely the amount of time taken per inspection will not be 10 times more for a 100 bed home over a 10 bed home?

This is the part that I as devil's advocate mostly intend to ignore:) However, if the government decide that they need an inspectorate and that the nursing homes should pay for it, they need a method of divvying up the charge. They could do it on time spent per nursing home but that opens up a pandora's box of hell when it isn't just verifiable time spent in the premises. Like arguments over solicitors fees. And it makes the charge variable, which means residents don't know what their charges will be if it's passed on.

Why can't they make a charge based on the square footage of the home

That one's easy - there's the possibility of more beds being squeezed into smaller areas or common areas available to residents being made smaller. Either is bad for residents.

, or a charge based on the numbers of beds

ie 10 beds to 50 beds x amount, 50-100 bed x amount etc?

I know you're just throwing ranges out as examples but working with those, it's a very high comparative charge on the home with ten residents as opposed to the one with fifty. The ones with ten residents are less likely to stay open under such circumstances. Oh, I know we do it all the time with other things, notably tax bands, but that still doesn't make it the most desirable way or fairest way of doing it. It also makes it most profitable for the size of nursing homes to cluster near the top of each range, which again makes it more likely that the ones near the bottom of the ranges will just shut up shop.

Unless I'm missing something significant, based on the above, making it a per capita charge is the fairest verifiable way for both nursing home operators and residents of imposing such a charge, assuming that it has to be imposed.

I take your point on it being easier for operators to pass the costs on to residents in this way, but even if you disagree with the charge being passed on or the charge being imposed in the first place, there isn't a particularly fairer way of doing it.

djpbarry

sceptre wrote: »

It also makes it most profitable for the size of nursing homes to cluster near the top of each range, which again makes it more likely that the ones near the bottom of the ranges will just shut up shop.

Or turf a few people out so they drop down a band.

Victor

Would ye all prefer a repeat of the likes of Leas Cross?

Daithinski wrote: »

The very fact that this "fee" (stealth tax) is charged on a per head basis suggests that is had been designed as a stealth tax. It makes it extremely simple and plausible for the home to pass this on. "its a government charge per head, so we're just chargin you".

Its not per head, its per bed.

Surely the amount of time taken per inspection will not be 10 times more for a 100 bed home over a 10 bed home?

Surely you are going to pay more attention to a big nursing home than a small one, seeing as public health-type issues become greater, the greater the resident population.

Why can't they make a charge based on the square footage of the home, or a charge based on the numbers of beds

Thats a most excellent idea. Indeed, if you read the original piece it says "The annual fee payable has been set at €190 per bed".

ie 10 beds to 50 beds x amount, 50-100 bed x amount etc?

I'm sorry, but do you actually understand what "per" means? That you equate your banding proposal to a "per bed" proposal shows a fundamental misunderstanding by you, not only of the matter at hand, but also of third class maths.

The reason of course is that it wouldn't generate the same money for the government.

Are you suggesting it would be more or less? there is a cost of these inspectors to be recouped. It either gets recouped based on the service provided or the money has to come from the Exchequer. If it comes from the Exchequer, it has to come off something else. Like childhood leukemia treatment. Won't someone think of the children.

The money has to be recouped somehow. A registration charge and a per bed inspection charge is probably the fairest way to do it. Other wise somewhere with 45 beds ends up subsidising somewhere with 46 beds.

The per head charge is a clever way of extracting a set figure from a certain sector of society. ie Numbers of beds x 190 euro = xxx millions.

This, to be honest is insulting. You make it out to be "clever" as if clever = cheating or that the government is going to add these millions of euro to their own bank balances.

So, do you have an alternative motive in suggesting that the HIQA shouldn't be properly funded?

djpbarry wrote: »

Fascist.

Horrified that I am to defend Sand, but you have the wrong political philosophy there.

nesf

Victor wrote: »

Horrified that I am to defend Sand, but you have the wrong political philosophy there.

I read it as very much tongue in cheek.

djpbarry

nesf wrote: »

Victor wrote: »

Horrified that I am to defend Sand, but you have the wrong political philosophy there.

I read it as very much tongue in cheek.

'twas indeed.

blueknight

Hi most people dont want to go to a nursing home but if they do they should be of a very high standard and there should not be advance notice of inspection Do older people feel they are being listened to, and their needs and wants taken into consideration?

Maura74

blueknight wrote: »

Hi most people dont want to go to a nursing home but if they do they should be of a very high standard and there should not be advance notice of inspection Do older people feel they are being listened to, and their needs and wants taken into consideration?

Exactly, residents are forgotten in these places they are locked in 24/7 without any outside secure areas for residents. The very small space out of the house is as big as postage stamp and there is no one available in the home take residents outside and they are keep locked inside. Also inspections should be made in he middle of the night time and without advance notice otherwise the inspections would be useless.

The home take about 50K pa for keeping elderly people locked up and who knows what happens to them if they got no love ones to be with them all the time.

Residents with dementia with short term memory loss do not remember what has been done to them in these home and if they are not inspected they no voice to speak for them. We are all getting old and that is one area that should be inspected and not just for someone with a board and tick all the right boxes without knowing the full pictures of what goes on in these home.

I would rather be shot then go into one of these places. :eek::eek:

K-9

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