Madam, - I read with interest the articles entitled "Home Truths" by Kitty Holland and Carl O'Brien (August 2nd). While they were a brave effort to portray what it is like to be an elderly mentally infirm person, in need of full-time nursing care in Ireland today, they by no means addressed the core issue.
The sad fact is that not many people care - neither the Government, the Department of Health nor Joe Public are interested, especially when it does not concern or directly affect them. It is also very apparent that while some relatives of elderly people are extremely caring, the majority will put their older relative into the cheapest possible care situation. Mr or Mrs Senior Citizen have absolutely no choice about what happens to them in this, the most frail and vulnerable time of life.
Our Government, through the Departments of Health and Finance, has instructed its service procurers - i.e., the health boards - aggressively to seek the cheapest possible care for the people who for 40 to 50 years have been supporting that same government through their massive contributions of tax and pay-related social insurance.
Dependent people have become bargaining chips. Health board service managers are now looking for "two for the price of one" type deals in private nursing homes. This type of bargaining is appalling. We are dealing with human beings, not cattle. They don't seem to realise that good quality care has a price and that price, which in the Dublin area is from €700 a week, is extremely good value for money.
As a nursing home proprietor I am tired of hearing comparisons being made between public and private care. There are no comparisons. We all pay through taxation for public care and look where that is at the present time! Apart from the fact that not one of the public nursing care units, either new or old comply with the standards required for their private counterparts, they also cost double (i.e. €1,360 per week) and in some cases treble, to operate.
Furthermore, they are not subject to the same rigorous inspectorate as the private sector. If we in the private sector do not carry out our duty of care to our patients as per the contracts entered into, we should be named and shamed. This would cut out all the sniping and anecdotal references to poor practices in private nursing homes.
How can a Government which purportedly seeks honesty and transparency not see that it is its own antiquated institutions, policies and the implementation of unworkable procedures which are costing the taxpayer huge and unsustainable costs.
Really, we need a total re-organisation of the health care system, where we have a lot more coal-face workers and a lot fewer chiefs, to drag this country into the 21st century. - Yours, etc.,
MARY McCORMACK, Fingal House Nursing Home, Swords, Co Dublin.