Housing of Dublin pensioner in Roscommon home 'highly unusual'

A DECISION to send a Dublin pensioner to a Roscommon nursing home managed by a senior health board official who was on sabbatical but working to sell beds at the home was described as “highly unusual” by an ombudsman inquiry.

The details are contained in an investigation by the office of Ombudsman and Information Commissioner Emily O’Reilly into the rejection of the patient’s refund application under the government’s 2006 nursing home refunds scheme.

The scheme was set up to repay medical card holders illegally charged for nursing home care.

The Health Service Executive contended that the woman was a private patient, until it received the ombudsman’s draft report.

The final report, released yesterday, found that she was a public patient placed in a contract bed in a private nursing home.

The HSE accepted the findings and agreed to refund some €24,000 to her family. The woman died in February 2011.

The Northern Area Health Board paid charges directly to the home, giving the impression that they were health board beds rather than contract beds, and charges were paid and rates raised without knowledge of the family, the report notes. It was “not credible” that the administrative arrangements for the home were made “due to lack of knowledge” of the system because the manager was a health board employee, the report said.

The Roscommon arrangements “could not be considered consistent with good practice” and posed “very serious questions” for the HSE area involved, the HSE said in a letter to the ombudsman dated September 2011.

In 2003 the Northern Area Health Board offered the patient a bed in the Roscommon home. The director of older persons’ services at the health board was on leave of absence and working at the Roscommon home.

He returned to his job in 2004 and has since retired.

His role included promoting the home and selling beds. In 2002 he offered the health board 20 contract beds at preferential rates.

He told the ombudsman’s investigators that his response from the health board was “probably facilitated from the fact” that he was known to staff.

The report notes that this was in the context of a “severe shortage” of public nursing home places in Dublin.

Ombudsman Ms O’Reilly said it was “crystal clear” that the woman was a public patient when her office looked at the records.