A female resident aged 101, of Rostrevor nursing home, Rathgar, slept every night in a chair for a year, Dublin District Court heard yesterday.
A director of public health nursing who inspected the home in May last year was told the woman slept in the chair as she found it more comfortable, the court was told. The court also heard yesterday that the home's system of recording wound treatments and drug authorisations for patients was not up to acceptable standard.
The evidence was given in the hearing of the case of Therese Lipsett, the proprietor of Rostrevor nursing home. She denies failing to comply with regulations governing such facilities arising out of inspections in September/October 2003 and May 2004.
Yesterday, a director of public health nursing, Anne Gill, told the court she carried out an inspection of the home on the morning of May 12th, 2004, in response to a confidential complaint that there was a woman sleeping on a chair.
When she arrived, she was informed by a member of staff that Ms M slept in the "Buxton" chair every night for the previous year because she "found it more comfortable there" than in her bedroom.
The inspector noticed Ms M's legs were swollen and recommended that they be put in an elevated position.
When asked to be shown her bedroom, the inspector was first brought to a room with a bed made up but without personal possessions.
Staff then said Ms M was in the process of being moved to another room and when the inspector went into it, she saw the bed had been slept in and there were some women's clothes in the wardrobe.
While Ms M was comfortable and fully dressed, such a situation was in breach of regulations and patient privacy, Ms Gill said.
On a subsequent visit some days later, Ms M was lying on a reclining bed and appeared to be very comfortable.
Staff said she preferred to sleep in it because she could become very agitated at night.
Ms Gill's inspection also revealed that the roster showed there had not been a nurse on duty the previous night to administer drugs to patients.
Dr Deirdre Somers, a designated officer of the then South-Western Area Health Board for inspection of nursing homes, told the court that on checking residents' medical records, she found authorisations from patients' GPs for certain medicines were out of date even though the drugs were still being administered.
In the case of one man on Valium, the GP had discontinued it in December 2003, but the record showed it was still being administered in March 2004.
Counsel for Ms Lipsett will make submissions in court today.