Minister's comments "alarming" - Leddin

Labour councillor Declan Leddin has desscribed as very worrying comments made by Health Minister James Reilly on RTE's Morning Ireland programme last Friday. According to Cllr Leddin Minister Reilly said on the programme that any public nursing home with less than 50 patients would be unlikely to remain open, something that would concern him in relation to the future of Ofalia House in Edenderry. "Only last week the Minister and the chief executive of the HSE Cathal McGee told the Oireachtas Health committee that they were primarily concerned with the cost per resident, reducing expenses and the day to day cost of operating public nursing homes." Cllr Leddin said. "The Minister is ignoring the fact that many public homes, while having extra capacity, are unable to increase patient numbers because of the ongoing recruitment embargo and the refusal of the HSE to replace staff who have retired or who are on sick leave." "The Minister and the HSE are saying that the average difference between the cost of keeping a patient in private care or in public care is €500. Again they ignore the fact that many acute patients are treated in public homes and that public homes provide a range of services which are not available in private care. Also, in a time when we should be moving the provision of primary care into community care centres, the public homes provide services which would be outside the remit of a private facility." Cllr Leddin said the general public should also be aware that significant tax breaks exist for developers of private nursing homes and that maybe the Minister should re-examine the use of taxpayer's money "in light of the current difficulties being experienced by public nursing homes such as our own here in Edenderry". "The public consultation process now being undertaken in light of the recent High Court decision regarding Abbeyleix is to be welcomed but patients and their families deserve more than a talking shop approach to ending the uncertainty surrounding public nursing homes," he said. "We all accept that there has to be reductions in public expenditure as a result of years of waste and neglect but elderly citizens in vulnerable situations should not be forced into the High Court to protect what should be a basic right," he concluded.