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Residents in a nursing home in Co Galway had no access to showers for 24 hours after the provider failed to pay its gas bill, an inspection by the health and safety watchdog has found.
On Thursday, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) published an inspection report into the Bushfield Care Centre in Oranmore in Co Galway.
During the unannounced inspection, which took place last July, inspectors found the gas supply to the centre had been interrupted because the provider had failed to pay suppliers.
“The impact of this was that residents had no access to hot water for one full day and showers could not be offered and facilitated,” the report said.
Cooking, heating and laundry services were also impacted, it added.
According to the report, a review of the operating bank account of the centre found there was “insufficient funds available to ensure a sustainable and safe service”.
Furthermore, some €3,000 of residents’ money was held by the provider in the operating bank account but was not available to the residents.
The registered provider could not be contacted during the inspection to assure residents money would be available should any resident request the return of their monies.
A review of the petty cash ledger found management in the centre used petty cash to “pay for medical and therapeutic services for residents”.
In addition, some residents were being charged for services they did not use, while those residents whose pensions were being received by the provider had these lodged into the operating bank account for the provider.
These issues “did not provide assurance that the provider had taken all reasonable measures to protect residents from the risk of financial abuse”, the inspector said.
In June, Hiqa’s chief inspector issued a notice to cancel the registration of the nursing home.
The July inspection was a “risk” to follow up the “urgent actions” taken by the provider to address issues of noncompliance identified in previous inspections in recent months.
The inspector said there was some improvement but that the provider “failed to address the significant issues” of noncompliance relating to governance and management of the centre, record management, the protection of residents’ finances and fire safety.
“Consequently, the chief inspector continued to have serious concerns regarding the capacity of the provider to provide safe and consistent care to the residents,” the report said.
The report was one of 50 published by Hiqa on Thursday.
In a separate inspection of another nursing home in Kilkenny, inspectors raised concerns about infection prevention and control, following an outbreak of the norovirus, which is also known as the winter vomiting bug.
The inspection report for Archersrath Nursing Home said overall “improvements were required in the management of the service to ensure safe effective systems were in place to support and facilitate the residents to have a good quality of life”.
An outbreak of norovirus had been declared in the designated centre on July 4th, a week before the inspection.
At that time, a total of 29 confirmed or suspected cases had been identified, including 14 residents and 15 staff members.
“While it may be impossible to prevent all outbreaks, careful management can mitigate spread of infection and limit the impact of outbreaks on the delivery of care,” the report said.
“However, overall inspectors identified that the governance and management systems in the centre were not effective to manage the current outbreak. Inspectors found evidence of poor oversight of staff and staffing resources that was impacting on the quality and safety of residents.”