Growing old in Ireland ; not the best place to be. (life, cost)

[okaydorothy]

Please see below for our recent experience(two days ago) of what it is like to grow old in Ireland, not have family there and nursing homes are closing their doors. Obviously the nursing home in question have a problem trusting their own governments. We are told nursing homes are private, but yet they receive 70m euros a year from the government.
----------------------------------------------------------------------


The above lady, is my frail 85 year old mother in law who suffers from dementia and recently broke her hip. Two years ago, she fell and CUH would not release her to her home due to the fact that there was nobody living in Ireland to help her and there was no home help available. We paid privately for a few months until that got too costly, and after that, we did receive home help who has been a wonderful life saver ; Her name is Breda and she went above and beyond every call of duty. Only for Breda, my mother in law would not be able to stay in her own home for the past two years.

Unfortunatley, we are at a crisis again. CUH is refusing to release her into her own home and they have recommended a nursing home setup for Kathleen. I came back to Ireland to see her and also to apply for the Fair deal scheme which I believe takes 14 weeks to be approved. My husband returned to Ireland last week with the understanding that his mother would be placed in Maryborough Nursing Home, Douglas, Cork. He went to visit it and really liked what he saw. When he spoke of money, he was told that his mum would pay eu496 a week towards her care ; 80% would come from her pension and the rest would be from the equity in her house. When I applied for the fair deal, I was never ever told about any kind of loans or anything. So we were under the assumption that everything was ok. That was until we were told by Maryborough Nursing Home that we would have to sign a direct debit that Maryborough Nursing home would take the 500 euro weekly out of his mothers account. Again, we were upset at this surprise, and he applied for the nursing home loan two days ago.

Today was the day Kathleen was supposed to move into Maryborough Nursing Home. When (CUH discharge coordinator) called the home, the person was on the phone. Unfortunately, we have called the home several times but no answer. Eventually, at 4;30pm Irish time on a friday evening, Maryborough House called to say that they were denying Kathleen a room due to the fact that they would need a guarantee from the HSE that the loan would be processed. Then my husband said even though we said we would pay upfront for a few weeks until the loan comes through ; again the word was no.

So now we are back at square one. We were told that if we turned down a room in a nursing home, we would have to pay CUH 1400 euro a week as Kathleen would be taking up a bed in the acute care hospital and she is not an acute patient any longer. Well, what happens when the nursing home deny’s her a bed ; do they also have to pay CUH 1400 a week?? That is exactly what happened in this case. So, now CUH will not release her to her own home alone, a nursing home is refusing to take her (for what reason I don’t know really) and what happens to this lady? Is this how Ireland treats its old and infirm? If a bed comes up after Wednesday, there will be nobody to sign any papers as my husband needs to return to work here in the states.

This is going to happen time and time again due to the enormous amount of young people emigrating like we did when there was no jobs in the 80’s in Ireland. When is Ireland going to take care of its own people?

I would appreciate any feedback, opinions or help that you maybe able to give.

Thank you

Sincerely,