BACKGROUND:The discovery of five residents' personal public service cards and medication will raise serious concerns
WHEN MIRIAM and Hayley Holmes boarded the shuttle bus from the Marriott Hotel in Ashbourne to Dublin airport at 7am on the morning of July 22nd, they left a big mess in their hotel room and at the nursing home they owned in Callan, Co Kilkenny.
The mother and daughter, who are the two listed directors of the Avondale nursing home, left in their hotel room a considerable amount of medication belonging to residents of the home and the personal public service cards of five residents.
Papers filed to Carlow District Court show inspectors at the Health Information and Quality Authority were told by nursing home staff that drugs for residents who no longer lived at the home had been prepared for return to the pharmacy but had never been received by the pharmacy. The missing drugs included sedative medications.
The discovery of five residents’ personal public service cards in the hotel room will raise serious concerns, given the allegations by several residents about financial abuses perpetrated against them, including the withdrawal of a resident’s pension at Callan Post Office.
As the two owners of Avondale House travelled to Dublin airport that morning, the Health Service Executive was taking control of the nursing home where 11 residents were living in very difficult and unsafe+ circumstances. The authority had secured an interim order from Carlow District Court cancelling the registration of Avondale nursing home. Yesterday the court made this order permanent.
Court papers show authority inspectors allege the owners had engaged in the “wilful and reckless abandonment of the nursing home and its residents”.
When they arrived at the home on July 21st, food stocks were running dangerously low, vulnerable residents were being discharged without the consultation of relatives or local GPs, and the owners were not co-operating with the authority.
The inspectors were told that the discharge of patients to other nursing homes was being undertaken on a temporary basis to allow for building work.
But when inspectors telephoned the other nursing homes they were told long-term placements were agreed. The authority says in the court papers it believes the home was being shut down.
In some cases next of kin were not told their father or mother was to be moved. One relative of a patient was told by the home owner by text message at 9.50pm that her relative would be moved in two days’ time. Another relative of a resident only found out their relative would be moved the following day when they were on a visit.
The provider had arranged for one terminally ill patient to be transported to another nursing home by wheelchair. The inspectors said this was a “totally unsuitable” method of transport and would place his life at risk, according to the documents.
Two residents who were due to be discharged were wards of court. Inspectors found no evidence that the office of the ward had been informed about the discharge.
Dr Tracey Cooper’s supplementary affidavit, which was opened in court yesterday, says the “conduct of the company and its directors Miriam Holmes and Hayley Holmes raised serious and significant concerns in my mind regarding the life, health and/or welfare of the residents then remaining in the nursing home”.
The last contact the authority managed to have with Miriam Holmes was by e-mail on July 21st. She wrote that she did not object to the authority and the HSE taking control in discharging the remaining residents. Since then Miriam Holmes has not been contactable.
The last remaining residents of Avondale nursing home were moved to suitable homes last week. The Garda said yesterday its investigation was ongoing.