Madam, – At a recent doctors’ conference in Galway the Mayo South coroner, John O’Dwyer, complained that nursing homes were transferring patients to hospital when their deaths were imminent (Home News, May 10th).
When my father was in a nursing home some years ago he had to be sent, by ambulance, to University College Hospital Galway on several occasions because no doctor would come to the home to attend him. His own doctor refused because the home was outside his area and the local doctor refused because my father was not his patient.
The main problem is that we don’t have any real nursing homes. What we have are retirement or geriatric homes who have neither the staff nor the facilities to deal with basic medical needs.
The creation of real nursing homes, with qualified nurses and doctors-in-residence, would save valuable beds in our main hospitals while providing proper care for two groups of people – elderly people experiencing short-term illnesses and younger patients who need to be discharged from the major hospitals because their procedures are completed, but who are not fit enough to return home because of unforeseen medical emergencies or lack of care at home.
As for the homes themselves, have we not dozens of surplus “Nama hotels” that could easily be converted to para-medical use? – Yours, etc,