Closure of Cork city nursing home ‘a big upheaval’ for elderly residents

A Cork city nursing home is to close after more than two decades, meaning that its 37 residents will need to be relocated, most likely outside of the city.

The management of Blair’s Hill Nursing Home in Sunday’s Well told The Echo: “It is with bitter disappointment that we can confirm that we have taken the decision to close Blair’s Hill Nursing Home, after 21 years of service within the community of the northside of Cork.

“The closure will be undertaken in a sensitive manner, and with the residents and their families our priority.”

The proposed date of closure is March 31.

The privately-owned centre was registered for 37 residents, as of its most recent Hiqa inspection, last April. These residents will have to be transferred elsewhere.

Shortage

Last November, a HSE spokesperson told The Echo that there is, “unfortunately, a well-recognised shortage of public nursing home beds in the Cork city area”.

Cork North Central Fine Gael TD Colm Burke told The Echo: “They will have to transfer the elderly people there to different nursing homes, and that can be quite upsetting for them.

“They could end up far away from the city.

“There aren’t many nursing homes in Cork city, and all of them are full, so the question is: ‘How do you fill that vacuum?’”

Mr Burke said he is planning to write to the HSE asking them to help find more spaces locally for the residents.

Cork-based advocate for the elderly, Paddy O’Brien, told The Echo that news of the closure “is a great pity”.

“I sympathise with the residents, it’s a big upheaval for them. When a person goes into a nursing home and has to be moved, it upsets them completely. It can take 12 months for them to settle in somewhere new.

“It’s heartbreaking for the residents being moved around, after they have built up relationships with everyone there.”

Cut off

Mr O’Brien said while the shortage of nursing beds in the city has been going on “for years and years”, he hoped there would be availability in HSE facilities for the residents to stay in Cork city, or even the suburbs.

“Don’t have them going out to Mallow, Midleton, Kinsale, or Fermoy. If people are moved further away, it can prevent their friends and family — many of whom are also elderly — from being able to visit them.

“People can’t travel there, and that can leave the residents cut off from loved ones, which can send them into a state they never recover from.”

The latest Hiqa report into the nursing home, based on an inspection carried out in April and published in August last year, found the centre not compliant in six areas, substantially compliant in three, and compliant in eight.

Though several positives were identified during this inspection, Hiqa said: “Significant action was required to come into compliance with the regulations relevant to; notification of incidents, governance and management, fire precautions, care planning, healthcare, and residents’ rights.”