EDITORIAL: The human side of nursing 'units' and the cost of failure to build them

Last week at the Joint Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsman, Tipperary TD Martin Browne in his capacity as

Cathaoirleach of the committee commented on the Dean Maxwell Nursing Home. 

He said, much like St Brigid’s in Carrick-on-Suir, “the Dean Maxwell unit is gone again from the hands of the people in Roscrea”.

But isn’t that the way lots of Tipperary’s nursing homes, particularly the new ones? 

Perhaps the issue is that the Government does not see nursing home care as a community or even a human issue.

It is a resource to be used to catch the overflow of a previous administration’s incompetence and poor planning as we have seen with the community unit in Nenagh. 

They are an expense or a piece on a Monopoly board like the Palmershill site in Cashel. 

What would happen if the powers that be saw them as the places where people spend their final days on earth? 

The places they may well spend their final days. 

They are where people go when they cannot look after themselves and they deserve to be treated with respect. 

Nursing homes allow elderly people, who can no longer remain in their homes, a place where they can be cared for in their locality. And remaining in their locality is so important.

If the home is located in a town, those people will have access to services and amenities. A local nursing home means their families and friends can visit regularly.

If a local nursing home is not fit for purpose or has not got space, that person has to go somewhere that might be unfamiliar to them or far away. 

We like to call them units. It’s cold and clinical. 

But they are not just facilities, they are someone’s home in the final years of their lives.  

They are not warehouses for people or a spare room you can use for storage.