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Health Service Executive - South Western Area - Nursing Home Fees

Year Concluded: 2005

Complaint Details:

The complainant wrote to me in February 2005 to say that her father, who was a medical card holder, had been a resident in a private nursing home for the previous five years following a stroke. The nursing home fees were very expensive and, after five years, were placing an immense financial strain on the family. The complainant said that her father had initially been put on a waiting list for a contract bed (a bed fully paid for by the HSE) in the nursing home in June 2003 but that the contract bed system had been discontinued in September 2003.

I requested the HSE's file dealing with the case. When I examined the papers it was clear that the HSE had made a commitment to the family, in June 2003, that their father would be awarded a 'contract bed' in the nursing home. Although the practice of contracting beds in private nursing homes was subsequently discontinued by the HSE in this instance from my examination of the papers there was no evidence to indicate that his family was advised of this decision at the time. If the family had been so advised of the decision, it would have enabled them to consider all the options available to them, in terms of their father's care, at a much earlier time. In light of this I asked the HSE to review the case.

The HSE reviewed the case and subsequently advised me that, in light of a recent new increased bed capacity initiative and having regard to the fact that the complainant's father had been placed on the waiting list for a contract bed but had not been notified of the discontinuation of the scheme, it would agree to fund the bed in the private nursing home for the future

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