Demand for regulations in wake of scandal at care home
THE chair of the Elderly Rights and Mental Health Association, Hatice Jenkins, (pictured) has called for new regulations to be imposed on care homes following shocking scenes at the Sınırüstü Nursing Home in the İskele region last weekend.
The elderly and disabled residents of the home were evacuated as the authorities finally took action over the deplorable conditions at the home, previously highlighted by the association in a public statement reported by Cyprus Today two weeks ago.
Speaking to this newspaper, Prof Jenkins said that care homes should be given stricter guidance and clearer targets on how to operate by the government, and that they should be given help to reach those targets.
“These places need regulation, and the government must regulate them,” she said, while also putting forward the case for the relevant authorities to be
more active in the running of nursing homes, and to intervene directly when necessary.
She confirmed that the Health Ministry had set up a committee to look into the issue and oversee the standards of care homes to avoid a repeat of what happened at Sınırüstü.
However, Prof Jenkins pointed to the fact that various government authorities had not been willing to take responsibility for the problems that have been evident in such care homes for years.
She spoke of how she had, on numerous occasions, contacted ministries and local authorities asking them to intervene, but was often turned away and told by various arms of government that they “did not have the authority” to intervene, while failing care homes were “artificially kept alive” by the same authorities.
Prof Jenkins made a point of rejecting calls for failing nursing homes to be completely shut down, pointing out society’s need for care homes.
“If they are shut down, who is going to look after the elderly at home?” she said. “They need 24-hour care, and people cannot provide that. We are all busy, we all work. That is why we need nursing homes.”
Prof Jenkins said that caring for an elderly relative at home is a difficult task and that many family members, when faced with the realities, become less keen on the idea.
This was highlighted further when Prof Jenkins spoke of what she called “neglect on the part of the public”.
“Where are the families?” she asked, speaking of the relatives of the people who had been left in awful conditions at the Sınırüstü Nursing Home.
She spoke of how elderly people in care homes receive few visitors, and “most family members only
go to visit once a year”, adding that many people are simply “abandoned” and “neglected”.
Prof Jenkins said that in general “people do not care” but that the appalling photographs and videos from inside the Sınırüstü Nursing Home released last weekend had generated interest in the issue.
“Nobody can ignore us anymore,” she proclaimed, saying that she was “glad” that the conditions there had come to light.
She said that the Sınırüstü Nursing Home had been known to have serious issues regarding its quality of care since 2019, but that nothing had been done about it until last weekend.
She warned that there are other homes in North Cyprus that have conditions comparable to the Sınırüstü Nursing Home.
Prof Jenkins also said that more care homes need to be built to reduce overcrowding.
“People buy a little house and 15 people move in,” she said. “Then they realise that 15 people is not enough to cover expenses, so they allow more people to move in, and eventually a room designed for two people has six beds in it.”
She said that such a practice is common in care homes in North Cyprus, and that such actions inevitably lead to a worsening of the quality of care given.
Prof Jenkins expressed her hope that wealthy investors will help build new care homes, while also pointing out that the construction of more care homes would create employment opportunities.