Moving our loved ones will hasten their deaths
That’s the stark prediction of the families of residents in a nursing home who are being uprooted from their facility, causing ‘transfer trauma’ that’s shortening their lives
WHEN John Sweeney, a 96year-old father-of-six, learned of the plans to move him out of his Dublin nursing home, he called his granddaughter Maria to the side of his bed.
‘You have to form a committee,’ he told her. ‘You have to start a protest. I’m going nowhere, not until I’m the last person rolled out of here in me bed. I’m not moving until there is no other option.’
‘He’s a very stubborn man,’ smiles Maria. ‘He was also really active in the community here in Ballyfermot all his life, he was a Peace Commissioner for over 40 years and was the first chairman of the local residents’ association. He knows what it takes to get things done, because that’s what people in Ballyfermot have always had to do.’
Indeed, last year John received a special award from the gardaí in appreciation for all
‘The stress and worry is non-stop, from the minute you open your eyes’
the work he did in his local community in his lifetime. The certificate was presented to him at the Cherry Orchard nursing home where he’s lived since November 2022.
Naturally, it was a wrench to move from his home on Clifden Drive to the nearby residential unit, but the care and kindness he’s received there helped make the transition a little easier.
But now, when he should be trying to enjoy these final years as best he can, John has found himself embroiled in yet another struggle for fair treatment.
On November 4 last year, residents at the HSE-run nursing home were informed that within 12 days they would be moved to another facility in Clondalkin to allow for urgent floor repair.
These are very elderly people – one woman turned 97 last month – while many of the others are suffering with dementia, or receiving palliative care. There is a genuine fear that moving them out of the hospital to another care facility will cause ‘transfer trauma’ and could ‘hasten their end’.
To date, around 40 of the residents have been moved out of Cherry Orchard but there are 16 who have refused to go.
Every weekend for the last five months, their loved ones and supporters have stood at the gates of the hospital, brandishing banners that they wave at passing motorists, hoping to raise awareness of their plight.
It’s been a deeply emotional and stressful experience for all those involved.
Sitting in a coffee shop not too far from Cherry Orchard, the toll it’s taken is clearly etched on the faces of four of those who have agreed to share their stories with the Irish Daily Mail.
Maria Stynes is a driving force of the campaign, just as she promised her granddad John, while Tom McGennis cared for his 97-year-old mother Catherine right up until she moved into the hospital five years ago.
Christine Marten’s mother Kathleen, 86, has lived there for the last seven years. The mother-of-ten’s family was delighted when she got a place in a facility that provides the on-site medical care she needs. Meanwhile, Geraldine Higgins’s mother Lily was the resident who lived in Cherry Orchard the longest. She moved there 17 years ago, when it first opened as a nursing home.
‘My dad was obsessed with Cherry Orchard, he didn’t want her going anywhere else,’ Geraldine explains. ‘Everyone was saying that because it was the HSE it would be very well run, so Dad waited an extra six months to make sure she got in.
‘He went there every single day, apart from one that he missed to go to his brother’s funeral in the UK. He flew out that morning and was back that night, just in case. From 1pm to 10.30pm every day for ten years, until he died, he was always there. It’s a blessing that he’s not around now, which is a horrible thing to say.’
Sadly, Lily died on December 18, just six weeks after the protests began. Geraldine believes a move from one unit to another at the hospital caused her mother unnecessary stress.
‘I got a letter in June informing me there was a problem with the flooring in her room,’ she explains. ‘That they were doing the whole unit and Mum would have to move temporarily for a week. I was really concerned about her being moved, but they told me it had to happen, that it was urgent.’
It ended up taking three weeks and a rather bizarre incident before Lily was moved back into her regular room.
‘The staff didn’t know her on the other unit,’ says Geraldine. ‘I could see by her that she was getting more and more upset, and not eating.
‘By the third week, she was completely dissociating, I couldn’t get her to talk or smile, she was just staring at me.’
At this stage, Geraldine went back to her mother’s old room and found an elderly man had been temporarily moved in.
‘He was in there with all my mum’s stuff,’ says Geraldine. ‘I kicked up. The staff told me who to ring, and that afternoon she was moved back into her old room. The staff in her unit were horrified when they saw her, they had to get her special food to
‘By the third week I couldn’t get her to talk or smile’
try and build her up again.
‘But she never really came back to herself and within five weeks she’d died. I was out protesting with the girls that morning and that night she was gone.’
Geraldine takes a deep breath to compose herself.
‘Look, of course over 17 years she’d declined, and you’re always aware you could lose her, but I think I would have got a little bit longer with her. The transfer trauma had a negative effect on her, there’s no doubt about that. I lost time with her.’
The impact, she believes, of just moving units had on her mother’s health has compelled Geraldine to continue to protest outside the hospital every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Kathleen Marten’s family was also delighted when she got a place at Cherry Orchard.
‘She’d been in a private nursing home, but it wasn’t meeting her needs,’ says her daughter Christine. ‘She needs to be in a hospital setting, and that’s the wonderful thing about where she is now – there’s 24-hour medical care available, they don’t need to be sent to a hospital if they need an IV drip, or things like that.’
Kathleen, her daughter explains, is ‘end of life’, and not always aware of what’s going on around her. Nonetheless, her family, especially her husband of 65 years, Charlie, is adamant that she should not be moved.
‘Since all of this started, my dad’s health has declined so badly,’ says Christine. ‘He’s 88 but was very fit up until this. The toll it’s taken is horrendous. He’s lost all hope because he can’t help, he feels he has no control.
‘There’s been a huge change in him and it’s all down to stress and worry. It’s non-stop. From the minute you open your eyes – if you do manage to get to sleep – it’s all about this.’
‘We were only just looking at photographs from the first protest and how everyone has aged,’ agrees Maria Stynes.
‘There’s been a visible change in everyone.’ The HSE says the decision to move residents was made after an inspection by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) found the floors of two units, Sycamore and Willow, in Cherry Orchard Hospital were a health and safety hazard. Along with a fire risk assessment, the issues were first highlighted by Hiqa in 2022.
Since then, the families claim, works on parts of the Willow unit have been completed, and it would make ‘common sense’ to move the remaining residents into these finished rooms, rather than transfer them out to other care homes.
The matter has been raised in the Dáil but, according to supporters, the HSE has repeatedly failed to fully answer their queries about why it is necessary to close the hospital for an estimated 12 months.
Solicitor Caoimhe Haughey, who has vast experience in medical negligence cases, is now representing 12 of the families.
‘I’ve been advising them that the HSE has no automatic right to dictate to them and their loved ones as to what happens to them,’ she told the Irish Daily Mail.
‘What I’ve seen over the last eight weeks or so is that the HSE keeps changing the goalposts, the story keeps changing.
‘I’ve had an independent engineer review the documentation and he’s advised that while there are certain works required, there is absolutely no reason for patients to be “decanted” off-site to other facilities.’
Haughey says she has sought a meeting with the HSE to discuss the residents’ concerns on numerous occasions.
‘All I’ve got back is “thanks for your letter, it’s receiving attention,”’ she says. ‘I’ve threatened injunction proceedings and have also heard nothing back.’
Hiqa told the Mail: ‘The HSE has identified serious structural and fire safety deficits in the Sycamore and Willow Units that must be addressed. The HSE must balance the risks inherent in any plan to complete these works in as timely a fashion as possible, in the best interests and for the safety of the residents is the temporary transfer of residents to another facility.
‘The buildings remain registered and the HSE has committed to Hiqa’s Chief Inspector of Social Services that, following consultation, residents will all be offered the choice of returning as soon as possible following completion of the works to ensure the safety of the residents.’
The HSE itself didn’t respond to a number of questions from the Mail. Campaign group Care Champions has repeatedly highlighted the ongoing issues at Cherry Orchard and this week said again that it is ‘deeply concerned’.
Spokeswoman Majella Beattie told the Mail that the ‘HSE is pressuring residents to relocate despite the availability of safe and ready rooms in Willow East’ and that their ‘actions are putting immense strain on both residents and their families’.
She continued: ‘We urge Minister Mary Butler [Minister for Older People] and [HSE chief executive] Bernard Gloster to intervene immediately.
‘These individuals deserve better than to be uprooted from their familiar surroundings, especially during such critical times in their lives.’
Indeed, given the age profile and palliative stage of most of the residents’ care, their families say they can’t understand why the HSE is insisting on moving them.
‘It’s unnecessary, that’s how we feel, and it’s going to hasten their deaths,’ says Maria. ‘There’s so much research done on transfer trauma, especially where there is any cognitive concern.
‘To move them from the environment they’re used to, it really is detrimental.
‘We’ve requested information from the HSE about trauma being caused by this move. 18 people have passed away since this started – some were moved internally, some off site. One lady moved and lasted just eight days. The heartbreak that it caused to the staff at Cherry Orchard, they were genuinely shocked.’
She also said that since November they have tried to contact Minister Butler ‘on a daily basis’.
‘There are great politicians who’ve been raising questions in the Dáil for us,’ says Maria.
‘But it appears Minister Butler has been given a statement by the HSE, she just reads from it and says if there’s a health and safety risk, she won’t consider anything else.
‘But she’s not the minister for the HSE, she’s the Minister for Older People. We’re asking her to come and meet the old people, let them tell her why they don’t want to move and the risks that are involved.’
‘All of these residents, all of them worked and raised children who work, they contributed to society,’ says Christine. ‘It should be payback time, but instead the HSE are trying to take away what could be decent final months and weeks of their lives.’
‘18 people have passed away since this started’