RTÉ Primetime expose DISGRACEFULL cruelty and neglect in a Dublin Nursing home

The primetime special on private nursing home care last night exposed a shocking catalog of neglect and abuse at a Dublin private nursing home that commands €45,000 per patient.
Some of the patients have been sent there by the Dept of Health who are paying the private owners.
Bed sores inches deep and to the bone, patients staying in wet beds, staff asleep and abusing old helpless people.
Widespread conning of the rare advance warning health dept inspections.

The reporter went under cover and filmed all of this pretending to be a new employee, it was truly awfull to watch and according to a UK based helpline, it's a common place situation in Ireland given the number of complaints they receive from here(they got 40 calls in the immediate aftermath of the programme according to the radio this morning).

Whats worse again is that contributers to the programme suggested that the health service executive have been turning a blind eye to this with just lip service as they have no "public" place to go with the patients that they send there so they don't want to close them down.

The latest I've heard is that the relevant minister has ordered in the Gardaí to investigate the abuse in the home that was featured last night.
Not surprisingly the owners of the home were refused an injunction at the high court yesterday in an effort to stop the programme going out.

What I saw last night is a sickening disgrace in 2005 and it would make anyone with a skelp of humanity in them just well up watching it.

Well done RTÉ, thats the type of public service broadcasting that I pay my licence fee for AND the department of health, their political masters and the health executives should be ashamed of them selves in my view for peacemeal allowing this type of thing to go on for so long.

Some background

Nuttzz

much wrose than disgaceful its criminal, lack of regulation, vetting, cheapest labour available, lack of training the list goes on and on.

Another excellent program from RTE and one to bear in mind when bitching about the licence fee.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Unshelved

One thing that struck me forcibly while watching Primetime last night (through my fingers for some of the time) that more time, money and effort goes into health and safety inspections in restaurants/cafes/fast food outlets than in care homes. Restaurant owners are terrified of the health inspectors, who have no compunction in closing down anywhere that doesn't meet minimum standards.

No such rules seem to apply to these nursing homes - witness the care worker in the programme last night who had never been told that a patient had MRSA. No extra precautions were taken to stop the spread of bacteria to the other patients. I'm just trying not to think about the poor people left lying in their own urine/faeces overnight.

Furthermore, the nursing home seemed to get advance warning about when "surprise" inspections by the Health Board were due to take place - a pity they didn't ask the head of the inspectorate about that when they had the chance. Wonder if there's a "mole" on the inside tipping people off? Given the amount of money to be earned by fleecing the patient - Leas Cross charge €40K per patient per year for basic care from staff (mostly immigrants) who are paid just above the minimum wage for demanding and skilled work (not that there was much evidence of this on show) - there must be a bit left over for a few backhanders.

Considering the owner of Leas Cross home paid the taxman €600K in back taxes a couple of years ago - there appears to be a lot of money in these homes for some people.

I found the whole programme profoundly depressing - especially the bit where the elderly female patient was being bullied by the care worker, and the other female patient left all day immobilised in a chair. When I get to that stage, I really hope someone puts a pillow over my head.

The Muppet

Unshelved wrote:

- Leas Cross charge €40K per patient per year for basic care from staff (mostly immigrants) who are paid just above the minimum wage for demanding and skilled work (not that there was much evidence of this on show) - there must be a bit left over for a few backhanders.

Pay Peanuts and you ou get ? To do this type of work you would need to be highly motivated and how could you be motivated to do such a job properly for €320 a week. Pay proper wages and give proper training and you'll get the quality of staff required. I would imagine that this is not an isolated case regarding the lack of care in private nursing homes.

Nuttzz

Look at the homes website, I see then have an ISO cert, one of the inspections that was mentioned in this program was probably an ISO inspection rather than a medical inpection, not that its any defence but just to let people know

mike65

Unshelved wrote:

Furthermore, the nursing home seemed to get advance warning about when "surprise" inspections by the Health Board were due to take place - a pity they didn't ask the head of the inspectorate about that when they had the chance. Wonder if there's a "mole" on the inside tipping people off? Given the amount of money to be earned by fleecing the patient - Leas Cross charge €40K per patient per year for basic care from staff (mostly immigrants) who are paid just above the minimum wage for demanding and skilled work (not that there was much evidence of this on show) - there must be a bit left over for a few backhanders.

There's no need for underhand tactics as the health board actually tell the homes when they are due a visit!

Unshelved wrote:

Considering the owner of Leas Cross home paid the taxman €600K in back taxes a couple of years ago - there appears to be a lot of money in these homes for some people.

The explosion of nursing home building in the last 5-6 years has been driven almost entirly by tax-breaks.

info here
here and here

Mike.

Von

It looked like a PD party political broadcast to me. It showed entrepreneurs how deregulation is attractive and profitable and it was a warning to the scummers to work harder or else.

Quantum

Von wrote:

It looked like a PD party political broadcast to me. It showed entrepreneurs how deregulation is attractive and profitable and it was a warning to the scummers to work harder or else.

It did nothng of the kind. Tax breaks is not deregulation. And all regulations are not necessarily good regulations. It was the PD's who supported the establishments of Regulators in other sectors such as Banking and Telecomms, and FF who had to be strong armed into it.
We need to make the Nursing Home sector an attractive investment area with tax breaks and oher incentives. There is absolutely no reason this cannot be tied in with strong regulation and inspection. Ethical investors and business would welcome this.

On this mornings Morning Ireland they played part of a report done in 1984 for the then equivalent of primetime which was almost a mirror of the primetime one.
Points were made this morning by the researcher that these problems have been ongoing and uncured for decades.
Afaik, the pd's didnt exist in 1984.