Are the nursing home closures due to other revenue streams emerging for the properties

Staff shortages I'd imagine. Childcare workers are getting a rise to €13 per hour minimum but healthcare workers can be paid minimum wages, is the work they do more valuable than healthcare workers?, the government clearly thinks so.

I know of one that closed recently. Decision was made because there was a lot of maintenance and renovation work to be done to keep it inline with current regulations/standards. (Or at least that is what they told the staff). Some places are also finding it difficult to recruit staff too. It’s very difficult for the residents especially if it was their local nursing home.

When a relative was in one for a few years he was close enough for people to pop in regularly and also when other locals visited their relatives they would often drop by for a chat. The further away they are from where they are from I think the lonelier it is to live in a nursing home.

I agree but they then couldn't afford to keep the business going. It's a catch22.

Much cheaper to run accommodation for refugees than a nursing home - less staff needed, and the payouts are straight from the state.

The better business opportunity will sway owners

Change of purpose is to maximise their bed space / revenue stream. As long as Putin is being aggressive people will continue to flee the Ukraine. As long as Ireland are EU members we shall enjoy zero say over our borders and have zero say as regards what happens on our island.

the nursing home can dispense with all expensive medical equipment, it’s doctors, it’s nurses, carers, physiotherapist.… talking at a guesstimate, close to 500,000 euro saving per annum for an average sized facility. Because it’s not healthcare they can squeeze more people in…so a big saving, plus maybe 20%+ more revenue…. They’ll slash their insurance bill as practically nobody on site will have serious health or mobility issues.

see a facility for refugees is far cheaper to run…no surprise when hotels gave the tourism industry and Irish citizens the middle finger that other industry would follow suit…

I would have thunk nursing homes were a great business to be in. Take on a load of chungwans eager to gain experience and further their nursing career, pay them a pittance.

Keep patients barely alive through careful use of crushed sleeping tablets in food, milk their pensions, fob the more troublesome ones off to hospitals or mental institutions. The only downside I can think of is they must spend an absolute fortune on heating oil / gas. I don't know what the minimum temperature of those places is but it must be close to 30 degrees

For profit nursing homes, naturally enough, employ the minimum number of staff and pay them peanuts. There are no regulations on staff to resident ratios. They do the minimum to keep HIQA off their backs. Only 23% of NHs were deemed fully compliant by HIQA in 2019.

I have experience of several of these places and they are not places that anyone would choose to live in, if a person is able to do a particular task with assistance (e.g. eating, toileting) going in to a NH, they won't be doing so for long after they go in as it is easier/quicker to just spoon-feed them or change their incontinence pad rather than helping them to the toilet. HIQA inspections do not pick up on this, Also I know people who went into NHs for respite care and came out having lost a considerable amount of weight after only a week due to the way these places operate.

One of the nursing homes that closed recently has 30 residents and is paid about 1000 per week per resident under the Fair Deal. So 30 grand a week. given the wages paid to care assistants, I find it hard to believe that these places aren't profitable, even with insurance, increased energy etc. costs.

If they see any opportunity i.e. asylum seekers to make more profit for less work, of course they will take it.

Typical of this half arsed cute hoor country to outsource important public, health and social services to private businesses then wonder why public services are in chaos. Whose idea was all of this? "Funny" how Celtic tiger property developer were also involved in nursing homes, A Galway Tent job?

Wait until you see what is coming next, the IT reported last week that now refugees are coming here in their thousands from Georgia and Albania and when they get on the plane they 'lose' their passport. This is becasue both countries are deemed safe countries and if they have a passport they will be sent right back at the port of entry. However without a passport Immigration cannot do anything legally and they have to be allowed to stay from where they quickly put in an aslyum application which as we know will allow them to stay at least a couple of years. At 100 quid a night each one of these refugees is worth 36,500 euro a year to a hotelier and government departments are literally throwing millions at this.

And the Minister of Justices response to this?

Thats basically a green light for us now to take in tens of thousands of Albanians and Georgians because its an open secret among those groups that if they want to come to Ireland all they have to do is just rip up your passport on the plane and bin it. Many of them will also know that it is also government policy to end direct provision and to give refugees their own door accommodation, i.e government policy is to use taxpayers money to give refugees houses and apartments. So they can do a couple of years in a hotel and then get a free house all while there is a housing crises on and you have students living in cars and almost 11,000 homeless and a few hundred thousand on housing waiting lists, many for over a decade now. It is a clusterfcuk of epic proportions.

A nightmare to operate while also making a hefty profit would be more accurate.

What is a “helper”?