Almost a third of beds remain closed at a HSE nursing home a year and a half after it was renovated and extended at a cost of almost €5 million.
The HSE has admitted the continued cost of the closure of a section of Bellvilla community nursing unit on Dublin’s South Circular Road is impacting on the local population, where there is a waiting list for the home.
In response to a query from Bríd Smith, People Before Profit TD for Dublin South Central, the HSE confirmed the 49-bed residential care setting for older people reopened on January 23rd, 2018, following an extensive renovation of the previous complex. The works cost €4.83 million.
"The cost of the continued closure of 15 beds in the unit impacts on the wider community whereby there is a limit on the number of long-term care beds available in the area," Catherine Dempsey, general manager of the HSE's older persons services, wrote in a letter to Ms Smith.
She accepted there were also “financial costs for the HSE due to the beds remaining closed” but declined to put a figure on them.
Ms Smith said it was “ awful tough” for people who were waiting to get into the home. “It involves the pain and suffering of mainly elderly people who need to access these beds and can not access them. It is tragic and disgraceful, but also very bad management.”
Ms Dempsey said the HSE had “commenced the process of enhancing the current staffing complement to enable the safe, orderly and phased opening of the remaining 15 beds within the unit”.
“There are ongoing attempts to recruit staff via rolling local recruitment campaigns and also the HSE national human resource department to enable the opening of the remaining beds in the unit.
“A waiting list is in place for potential residents to have their name included for a placement once a bed becomes available.”
Ms Smith said most of the people on the waiting list for a bed “worked and paid taxes in this country all their lives, and will be bewildered at what the hell is going on with how we are running our public services”.
“It is shocking to find out that almost a third of those beds are lying empty for as long as they are, and God knows for how much longer as well.”