Local Election Campaign 2024
Nursing Homes Ireland – Local Election Campaign 2024
#SaveOurNursingHomes
Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI) is proud to launch its 2024 Local Election campaign, standing alongside families whose relatives and friends are being cared for in private and voluntary nursing homes.
Over the next three weeks, families of nursing home residents and staff will be actively engaging with local councillors and candidates, sharing their stories, and advocating for change.
Launching from the Oak Room in the Mansion House on Thursday, May 16th, NHI will be leading the three-week campaign, focusing on delivering very clear messaging to local councillors and candidates; we need urgent and immediate action to save our nursing homes.
Across the three weeks, with support from NHI, families of residents and staff in nursing homes across the country will be directly engaging with local councillors and candidates, and their wider parties, to raise awareness of nursing home needs in all local communities.
Below we have resources that you can use to help raise awareness to your local candidates regarding nursing home care.
Residents in nursing homes must not be discriminated against in respect of provision of services including physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and aids and appliances.
Support equal access to primary care services, equipment & appliances for all older people regardless of whether they are living at home or in a public, private, or voluntary nursing home.
In order to sustain local nursing home services and to stabilise the sector in the coming years, private and voluntary nursing homes require an immediate “Stabilisation Fund” of €265 million.
This equates to increased Fair Deal funding of €270 per resident per week. The funding given to HSE nursing homes that are providing the same service is currently, on average, over €700 per resident per week more than that given to residents in private and voluntary nursing homes.
A mechanism to index link future State-imposed costs is also required.
Stand with us in advocating for the recognition of nursing home care staff by CORU, the regulator for Ireland’s health & social care professionals.
The role of the Healthcare Assistant needs to be recognised as a professional occupation and nursing homes need to be properly resourced through the Fair Deal scheme to enable them to appropriately remunerate care staff.
Our care staff deserve to receive fair pay comparable to their HSE counterparts.
Facts!
- Over 70 nursing homes have closed since 2017 with a loss of over 1,800 nursing home beds in local communities throughout the country.
- Even if private & voluntary nursing homes received this increase of €270 per resident per week, HSE homes will still be getting €430 more per resident per week through the Fair Deal scheme.
- Residents in private & voluntary nursing homes are discriminated against as they do not have the same access to primary care services, essential equipment & appliances as residents in public nursing homes.
- Residents and families are regularly required to purchase services and equipment that would be supplied by the HSE if the resident was living at home or in a public nursing.
- The State values the care provided by Healthcare Assistants in private & voluntary nursing homes less than the same work being done in HSE nursing homes.
- Many nursing homes in local communities throughout the country are struggling to survive.
- They are being allowed to close and the residential care service for older people will never be replaced in many local towns & villages. The service will be gone from these locations forever.
- Healthcare Assistants are not registered as Healthcare Professionals with the governing body, CORU.
- Private & Voluntary nursing homes want to remunerate their care staff to a similar level of salary that is available in HSE nursing homes. This can only be done if the funding provided to these nursing homes is increased.
- The administration of the Fair Deal scheme through the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) actually perpetuates lower salaries for carers.