I think everyone is breathing a sigh of relief knowing that all the former residents of the Avondale Nursing Home in Callan have now been moved to new facilities. One can only hope that the care that they are receiving in their new homes is of a high quality and that they are happy in their new environment.
One would have to compliment the staff of Avondale Nursing Home as their care and their attention to clients was never under question. In fact the staff themselves raised the concerns about the nursing home initially alerting the authorities to activities at the home that were not ethical or that were not in the best interest of patients.
Staff have suffered along with the clients as they have been left without pay in the absence of the owners of the home who appear to have absconded. They were last seen boarding an airport bus in Co Meath, which leads Gardai to believe they have possibly left the country.
They are being sought in order to answer questions in relation to claims by clients that money was handed over to the owners improperly and that service cards were also taken. Some service cards have since been located in a hotel room which the pair stayed in before they were seen boarding the bus but the pair has not been contactable since a day before the forced closure of Avondale.
One would have to wonder why there are so many worrying stories in the news about nursing homes in recent times.
People put their loved ones in the care of professionals in nursing homes because they believe that this is the most appropriate care for the person in question. However, it must be extremely upsetting for families to discover that their relative was not receiving that care and in many cases around the country that have been highlighted in recent times, clients have even been physically abused.
Family members should never be shy about asking questions of the staff about the care that their loved one is receiving while in nursing home care.
In many cases the client themselves can express when they are not happy but there are always cases where the client is not well enough to be able to voice their opinion and voice their concerns in many cases and these are the people that need to be particularly looked after.
Nursing home care is enormously expensive and therefore there should be no compromise on the quality of care offered to the client.
We will all be elderly and a little less able than we are now in the future and we would hope that we would be treated well by those looking after us, whether it be family members or professional staff. The circle of life is a funny thing and what tends to happen is what goes around comes around. Anyone who mistreats an elderly person should be charged accordingly as happen with any other criminal offence. There is absolutely no excuse for it. Those working in the care industry need to have a true love of the job to be able to do it because we all know it is not an easy job, however, that is why not just anyone should be permitted to carry it out.
Our vetting system should be more strict and the checking of references should be carried out diligently.
There is no way that we can completely obliterate abuse in the care industry but we can do our damnedest to rid the country of the most part of it by following simple regulations and by spot-checking on a regular basis. Stamp out elder abuse now as one day it could be you on the receiving end.
