Inspectors' reports: Patients only getting baths or showers every 10 days and food being cleaned off dinner plates and being kept for use in stew or soup the following day are among the poor practices which have been found in nursing homes across the State.
The practices are outlined in inspection reports on private nursing homes carried out in the last 5½ years but some of which have only been released in recent months under the Freedom of Information Act.
One refers to how officials from the former South Eastern Health Board inspected a Co Kilkenny nursing home in December 1999 and found food being recycled from dinner plates so it could be used the following day.
They also found there was no brown bread available, the heating wasn't working, the personal clothing of patients was "not very clean" and rosters did not reflect the numbers of staff on duty.
Staff had been instructed by the owner, it said, "to cover up and indeed in one instance lie to the inspection team".
An environmental health officer, in his report on the home in October 2000, stated: "The home is poorly run and in the long term I feel it constitutes an accident waiting to happen".
A follow up inspection in November 2000 noted a frail elderly lady was "lying on an under- blanket which was damp" and "chronic under cleaning in evidence in the home".
The home is still registered, the health board has confirmed, but it pointed out that it would not have been re-registered if standards hadn't improved. The home cannot be named for legal reasons.
A representative of the owner said last night a statement would be issued on the matter later.
A more recent inspection on the Bedford House Nursing Home in Balbriggan, in February 2004, found it to be "very run down".
The curtains in five bedrooms were falling down and could not be closed.
In one four-bedded room there was no screen between any of the patients and all four patients used commodes for toileting. "Patients get a bath or shower every 10 days," the inspection report said.
A spokeswoman for the home said the owners would not comment over the telephone and an appointment would have to be made to meet them.
The reports were released to Fine Gael TD Fergus O'Dowd who has been campaigning for an improvement in nursing home standards for some time.
He has been calling for an independent inspectorate for nursing homes for several years.
Other inspection reports released to him over a period of years include one in which environmental health officers, during an inspection of a Co Meath nursing home in December 1999 found the "record of administration of medicines not always as prescribed".
Emergency call facilities were not provided in a number of rooms in another Co Meath home, inspectors found when they visited it in January 2001.
A nursing home in Co Waterford was found in December 1999 to have totally inappropriate staffing levels.
A 78-year-old woman bed bound with Alzheimer's disease "appeared extremely ill and had no one in attendance with her. She was isolated from the main area and the room was cold. She had no way of indicating that she required assistance, either to other residents or to the staff".
Despite having pressure sores she was lying in the same position for more than a two-hour period during the inspection.
In May 2000 an inspection on a nursing home in Co Wicklow found "there was no doctors signature for medications given" and one resident had not had his prescription renewed since November 1999.
And when a nursing home in Co Cork was inspected in September 2000 bedrooms and bathrooms were found to be dirty. "Flies were found on the floor under the window under cartons of fruit juice" in one bedroom.
The inspectors did not feel the home provided nutritious and varied foods.
"Thirteen fillets of cod had been baked to feed 30 people. The servings were small, over cooked and unappetising. The menu pinned to the wall had not been adhered to."