RSCI hospital staff to leave nursing home
DEALGAN HOUSE CONFIDENT THEY CAN EXTINGUISH COVID OUTBREAK
STAFF at Dealgan House Nursing Home have been told by management that the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) Hospital group which took over the operational management of the privately owned nursing home on Friday April 17 ‘will be terminating their support’ from next week.
The message sent by managing Director Eoin Farrelly (which has been seen by The Argus) said that the Toberona nursing home had received ‘ tremendous support’ from the RSCI group and that ‘ from the change made to the testing policy’ they now know which of their residents and staff are COVID-19 positive and which are clear.
‘We are confident that given proper care, most of the residents infected by the virus will make a good recovery,’ continued the message.
Staff were assured that ‘full PPE is available for staff caring for residents who are positive and training has been and will continue to be provided in its proper use.’
‘Using and disposing of PPE properly, ensures that nursing and care staff will not be infected and that the virus cannot be transmitted outside the infected resident’s room.’
Saying that every step was being taken to ensure that those who tested negative remained so, the letter stated ‘ The result is Dealgan House is again a safe place to live and work.’
‘We look forward in the next few weeks to extinguishing the outbreak completely and to ensuring that it never reoccurs.’
Management also appealed to staff to return to work as soon as it was possible for them to do so, saying that with the RCSI group leaving, ‘responsiblity for the care of our residents will again fall solely on Dealgan House.’
The letter also acknowledged that they had been ‘ through a very traumatic time and are deeply saddened by the tragic consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak, especially for our residents.’
The RCSI had taken over the operational management of Dealgan House after residents and staff were affected by a COVID-19 cluster, resulting in the deaths of a number of patients.
Last week the managing director issued a statement saying they welcomed the support being provided by the RCSI Hospital Group to help them overcome an outbreak of Covid -19 in the home. ‘It is exactly the support for which we have been pleading since our first confirmed case on April 4th.’
He added that their ‘priority is and always has been the care of our residents’ and said they had kept families informed by e mail as the situation developed.
The difficulties faced by Dealgan Nursing Home and other care facilities in Louth have been raised by Sinn Féin TD Ruairí Ó Murchú, who has submitted a series of Parliamentary Questions.
Mr Ó Murchú said he had been informed that staff and patients at the Dundalk home had been tested for COVID-19 a number of days ago and there were positives among the results.
There are, he said, increasing worries this week that as COVID-19 results come back for staff there may be ‘shortages at facilities, which could spark an ancillary crisis’.
‘ This is because, I have been informed by nursing home owners, that there are no concrete plans in place from the HSE to deal with staff being off with COVID-19’.
The lack of clear communication with some families has also been raised by Mr Ó Murchú who cited two cases where relatives of those in Dealgan Nursing Home contacted his office seeking assistance because ‘ they felt they were not getting enough information from the hospital group about what was happening’.
He said: ‘In one instance, the family told me that their loved one, who is aged in their eighties, had been treated at a hospital earlier this week for an illness not related to COVID-19 and had tested negative for the virus.
‘However, the family was deeply concerned about the situation their relative was going back into Dealgan when they are discharged from hospital. They had sought advice about what their options were.
‘In the second case, the family contacted our office to raise concerns about the segregation of residents who had tested positive for the virus. The relative concerned had a negative result, but the family told me their room was on the same corridor as those who have the virus.
They were also concerned that they were told the same staff were looking after both negative and positive patients’.
Mr Ó Murchú said he had written a number of times to the CEO of the RCSI Hospital Group, Ian Carter, about the families’ and other general concerns.
In an email to Mr Ó Murchú, Mr Carter said: ‘ This involved the RCSI Hospital Group being responsible for ensuring necessary model of care through provision of appropriate nursing and medical staff, thereby ensuring residents’ wellbeing’.
The TD said he ‘ hoped this meant that every and all measures were being taken by the hospital group to ensure the very best care for residents’.
‘After everything that has gone on here, the very least that families, staff and residents can expect is clear communication from those who are now in charge of the situation. People shouldn’t have to come to a TD to try to get clarity about what is happening with a loved one at Dealgan, or any other nursing home.
‘ That has been one of the huge problems in this situation – the lack of clear, precise communication – not only between nursing home management and families, but also between the HSE, and the private nursing home sector’.
Deputy O Murchu said he had spoken to owners of other private nursing homes in Louth and ‘it was clear that some had to take their own steps to ensure they had enough Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and to close the facilities to visitors, ahead of the HSE advising them to’.
Nursing Homes Ireland have raised concerns about how older people were transferred out of acute hospital settings into care facilities and whether a comprehensive testing regime was in place at that early stage.
There are, he said, a number of serious outstanding issues including testing regimes, the supply and use of PPE and staffing levels when carers and nurses are off sick.
He said there had been ‘ample’ warning from other states’ experiences of COVID-19 which showed that ‘older people were at a much higher risk’ but ‘it was clear the HSE and the Department of Health had not prioritised nursing homes early enough’.
‘Last week, figures from the National Public Health Emergency Team showed a rise in the numbers of people who have died in nursing homes in the State from the virus – it rose from 276 on Monday April 20 to 348 on April 22. A further 102 residents were also suspected to have died from COVID-19.
‘ These numbers highlight the severity of the situation that has been allowed to develop in our nursing homes’.