Nursing home nightmare still haunting the elderly
Cathal Gallagher was the care assistant whose secret filming at Leas Cross Nursing Home helped expose the shocking state of care for the elderly there in 2005. Now, as the Irish Independent reveals how serious problems remain in the standard of care being provided by some nursing homes, he questions why no one has been held accountable.
Tuesday August 04 2009
IT is over four years now since the country became aware of the poor standard of care in some of our nursing homes.
My involvement with Leas Cross began in February 2005, when I was approached by RTE's 'Prime Time' to investigate conditions and reports of neglect in nursing homes.
My experience prior to this was as a care assistant for about nine years in a Dublin hospital.
I began to work for RTE the following month as an undercover reporter. My initial role was to gain a position as a care assistant in nursing homes in the greater Dublin area.
After a succession of interviews, I managed to gain employment in Leas Cross Nursing Home in Swords, Co Dublin, on March 18, 2005.
On the first day I entered Leas Cross, it gave me a sense of tranquillity and security with its electric gates and manicured lawns.
But after a few hours of working with residents and staff I got a completely different picture of conditions there.
Over the next week, it became clear to me that standards at the home were poor. The nursing station was littered with written protocols on the dos and don'ts of residential care but these were seldom signed or adhered to. The stock of gloves, aprons and toiletries was always low.
From the moment residents got up in the morning until they went to bed at night, it was a conveyor belt of mishaps.
The majority of staff at the nursing home were foreign nationals, mainly from the Philippines and Nigeria. The nursing and care staff appeared inexperienced at caring for the elderly.
Communication between them and residents was minimal and if residents had any questions about their condition, this was seldom relayed to the charge nurse or matron.
I felt this was a serious flaw because, if a problem wasn't mentioned to either of these people, nothing was done.
This was when we decided to secretly film conditions within the home, using a camera in my tunic to capture my communication with staff, residents and their relatives.
I kept notes, which I saved on my mobile phone, of the goings on at the nursing home, detailing the actions of staff members towards residents.
Each evening after work, I would meet with a member of the 'Prime Time' team to download the film and to report the daily happenings.
The programme was compiled over the next two months as I continued to work at Leas Cross. I finally left the nursing home on May 18.
A letter was sent to the nursing home the following day informing the owners that we had filmed events there.
The owners of Leas Cross, along with the matron, subsequently took an interlocutory injunction to restrain RTE from broadcasting the programme on May 30.
Thankfully, Mr Justice Frank Clarke refused their application just three hours before the show was due to be broadcast.
To pick out Leas Cross as the only offender would be wrong. You only have to look at the serious complaints outlined in today's Irish Independent to realise that.
While I'm pleased that the setting up of inspections by the Health Information and Quality Authority has come about, as a direct result of my undercover work, much more can be done to safeguard nursing home residents. Particularly, I believe a close watchdog policy is needed from the inside.
As for the families waiting for answers over what happened their relatives at Leas Cross, it has been a poor result for them as no one has been held accountable by the commission that investigated deaths connected to the nursing home.
Health Minister Mary Harney said after the commission's report was published that she could not guarantee that it would not happen again. One wonders what the outcry would be if she said the same about protecting younger people.
