The chief executive of the Irish Nursing Homes' Organisation has accused the State's health boards of clogging up acute hospital beds by holding back nursing home grants for elderly patients.
Mr Paul Costello said yesterday that the health boards had instituted a "major delay" in approving means-tested grants, known as subventions, for elderly patients requiring nursing home care. As a result, patients were remaining in acute hospital beds rather than taking up available beds in nursing homes.
Until recently, patients took up their nursing home beds while their applications were being processed. The money was then paid retrospectively.
However, the health boards had put it in writing that the application must be approved before the patient can move from a hospital bed. "This can take up to two months," Mr Costello said. "There are approximately 600 beds available in nursing homes throughout the country, but elderly patients cannot move into nursing homes because the health boards are delaying approving nursing home payments.
"This situation is aggravating the oversupply of nursing home beds, where occupancy levels are running at 84 per cent."
If these beds remained idle, the nursing homes would be in danger of closing, Mr Costello claimed.
A spokeswoman for the Eastern Regional Health Authority has denied that there has been any change of policy among the ERHA health boards. She said that patients were still being admitted to nursing homes in the ERHA area while eligibility for subvention was being assessed.
The spokeswoman said that the ERHA had spent €50 million on nursing home beds last year and it intended to increase that figure this year. However, not all the available nursing home beds were suitable for the patients requiring care.
Meanwhile, the Irish Nurses' Organisation last night sent a circular to its members, warning them to be vigilant of "covert cuts" in hospitals.
"The circular is to remind members of our policies," said Mr Liam Doran, the INO general secretary. "It is our policy that vacant nursing posts are filled, that locum cover is provided for annual leave, study leave and maternity leave, and that nurses are confined to nursing duty only."
Mr Doran said that the INO had become increasingly concerned about covert cuts and was having to battle constantly with managements to ensure that nurses' rights were protected.
"In doing this, we are quoting the Government promise that front-line staff in the health service will be protected, but we don't get the sense that this is happening on the ground," he added.
