Taoiseach intervenes in Nenagh controversy over nursing home
Taoiseach Simon Harris has intervened in the controversy over the highly controversial decision by the HSE to repurpose a new multi-million euro care home for the elderly in Nenagh into a temporary privately-run stepdown facility for patients at the overcrowded Limerick University.
Deputy Alan Kelly, raising the issue with the Taoiseach in the Dáil last week, was told by Mr Harris that he hoped to see proper engagement over the issue to ensure that the concerns of the local community in regard to the hotly contested decision are heard.
On being informed that the people of the town and surrounding areas were set to take part in a protest march on Saturday, May 11, to oppose the move, the Taoiseach said he hoped there can be proper and decent engagement in relation to the issue before that date “so that the people of Nenagh feel heard and that their concerns can be addressed.”
The Taoiseach informed Deputy Kelly in the Dáil that he would ask the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, and the HSE to engage directly with the Labour TD and other North Tipperary representatives on the issue. The Taoiseach was responding after Deputy Kelly told him he was delighted that Mr Harris had stated in his maiden speech to the Dáil that he would ensure “a step change” when it came to how this country cared for its older population.
AT ODDS
However, Deputy Kelly said this undertaking was completely at odds with the decision of the HSE to repurpose the new state-of-the-art 50-bed nursing home unit at Tyone, Nenagh, into a stepdown facility for patients from UHL.
Deputy Kelly said the new community care home was vital because the only other local publicly funded care home - the decades-old Saint Conlon’s in Church Road - had been effectively condemned by the Health Information and Quality Authority and therefore has to close.
The Labour TD pointed out that he had frequently raised the problems caused by patient overcrowding at UHL. But for the HSE to now decide that an overflow of patients from that hospital should be cared for in the new care home for the elderly in Nenagh was wrong. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Deputy Kelly told the Taoiseach.
Underling the crisis locally, he said, was that there were over 40 people in the Nenagh district “stuck in acute beds who can’t get nursing home care because private nursing homes won’t take them”.
The new currently vacant unit in Tyone was built to be a nursing home and it should be opened as a nursing home, said Deputy Kelly, who added that local people were about to take to the streets over the issue.
completely and utterly wrong
Saying such a move was “completely and utterly wrong”, Deputy Kelly urged the Taoiseach to honour what he said in his maiden speech and ensure a step change for the elderly “and for the people of North Tipperary as well.”
The Taoiseach thanked the Labour TD for raising the issue and said he did want to see a step change in the care of older people.
He noted that Deputy Kelly had raised an issue in regard to “the unintended consequences” of older people not being able to access a community facility.
The Taoiseach posed the question that if elderly people needing care could not access such facilities, then where else would they end up and what would be the impact of that on the health service?
“I think there is logic in the point you made,” the Taoiseach told Deputy Kelly.