SEVEN RESIDENTS at a private nursing home in Co Meath were at risk of hypothermia and food in the facility was scarce when it was inspected by the Health Information and Quality Authority, a court heard yesterday.
Hiqa was at Drogheda District Court seeking an order to cancel the registration of Creevelea House Nursing Home in Laytown, which would effectively shut it down. The owners of the home are objecting to the application.
This is the fourth home which the watchdog has closed or tried to close since it began inspecting all public and private nursing homes in mid-2009. Nursing homes have been closed by it in Wicklow and Offaly and earlier this month the authority obtained an interim order at Dublin District Court effectively shutting down Rostrevor House Nursing Home in Rathgar.
The order was obtained without notice to its owners, after telling the court it had been informed of allegations that residents were beaten, kicked and abused in the home by a male care assistant since mid-2008. Rostrevor’s owners say the allegations are unfounded.
A Hiqa inspector told Drogheda District Court the Laytown home was not clean, there was no meat and the only fresh vegetables consisted of one bag of potatoes and a turnip when it was inspected last year.
The authority had concerns for a 93-year-old woman who might not have eaten for 24 hours. There was no nutritional plan for her and she had not been weighed, it said. A 66-year-old resident was not having his diabetes monitored properly and, although he had a history of falls, he was not adequately supervised, the court was told.
Nursing home inspector Nuala Rafferty said the first inspection took place in March last year after the niece of a resident got in touch because of concerns about his care.
When inspectors arrived they found “nobody running” the home and “nobody overseeing the management of residents”.
Peter Murphy, director of Creevelea House Ltd, lived in Limerick. Hiqa issued him with an emergency action plan but Ms Rafferty said he did not seem to be aware of the level of concerns they had. He felt that the inspectors were creating problems for him and he felt bullied.
In an inspection in November, seven residents had temperatures below 36 degrees and were “verging at risk of hypothermia”, the court heard. Inspectors told staff to give out warm drinks and extra blankets.
In March this year there was still a lack of clinical governance and a lack of adequate care and residents were at risk, she said. The HSE was contacted and it carried out an assessment of the residents and since then it has had staff in the home.
In April Mr Murphy undertook to meet commitments required by Hiqa but yesterday the authority said while there have been some improvements it believes there is a “serious risk” to the home’s nine residents.
The hearing before Judge Flann Brennan will continue in two weeks.