The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has said any mass expansion of beds in the nursing home sector must be provided by the public health service.
This comes as the ESRI have projected that long-stay bed requirements for older people are to grow by up to 80% by 2040.
We must face a critical demographic reality, Ireland’s population is ageing rapidly. By current projections, Ireland is on course to have the highest old-age dependency ratio in the European Union. This will place unprecedented pressure on our health service, especially on long-term care systems which are already stretched thin
Today, 74% of all long-term residential care beds in Ireland are in private facilities, and just 14 large private operators now control about 40% of all LTRC beds nationally. The increasing privatisation of these services is not the answer.
The INMO firmly rejects the privatisation of care for older people. The care of older people is not a commodity to be bought and sold. It is a public good and it must be treated as such through sustained public investment in the provision of high quality, publicly delivered, residential and care services for older persons.
A two-tiered system of care of the older person services is not what Sláintecare envisioned. It is not aligned with the principles of universal, equitable healthcare. It is not working for the most vulnerable people in our society, those who rely on us to ensure they can continue to live and age with dignity in their own local community.