Sir, – I write to you as the chief executive of Newbrook, a group of five nursing homes across the midlands and west of Ireland providing care to 300 of our most vulnerable citizens. I would like to point out the inequity and wide disparity between the resources available to private nursing homes and the HSE-operated nursing homes.
The HSE regularly publish details of the cost of care in private and voluntary nursing homes. However, it stopped publishing the details of the cost of care in public nursing homes in 2010 while continuing to publish the details of the cost of care in private and voluntary nursing homes. In 2010 St Mary’s in Mullingar, a HSE nursing home, cost €1,200 per week under the “Fair Deal” scheme. That cost has now sky-rocketed to €1,960. Our own nursing home in Mullingar charges residents €824 per week under the same “Fair Deal” scheme.
Therefore the State is outrageously underfunding care in private and voluntary nursing homes through the “Fair Deal” scheme while paying an exorbitant price for care through the same State-run scheme to HSE nursing homes.
Private and voluntary nursing homes have seen very significant increases in the cost of providing residential care services due to the improved standards required by the Health Act 2007. Both private and voluntary nursing homes and HSE nursing homes are subject to the same standards and regulation by HIQA and cater for residents of comparable dependency levels. While the improved standards are most definitely welcome and benefit the residents of all nursing homes in the State, the cost of meeting the standards has not been borne equally by the public and the private sectors. – Yours, etc,
PHIL DARCY,
Newbrook Group,
Multyfarnham,
Co Westmeath.