LISTEN BACK: SAGE ADVOCACY DISCUSSES KEY ISSUES FOR NURSING HOME RESIDENTS ON SHANNONSIDE FM February 28, 2022

What's the future of long term care in Ireland?

Listen back here to our Exec Director Sarah Lennon on the Joe Finnegan Show on Shannonside FM discussing some of the key issues that are currently impacting on nursing home residents and their loved ones.

Joe Finnegan introduced this part of his show by reading out a letter that had been sent to the Joe Finnegan Show on Shannonside FM by a healthcare nurse who detailed her experiences of working in a nursing home.

Ms Lennon said the letter writer's deep commitment to the well being of the people she cared for in the nursing home shone through.

Sage Advocacy's Exec Director said nursing homes and other medical and care facilities had, throughout the pandemic, experienced levels of stress that could never have been anticipated previously.

But Ms Lennon said Covid-19 had also exposed the dangerous architecture on which the current system of care in congregated settings for older people is built - such as an over-reliance on nursing home care as opposed to an infrastructure that provides the support for people to live at home in their own communities.

Sage Advocacy's Exec Director said what the Government now needs to do is deliver on its commitment in the Programme for Government to establish the Commission on Care which can then look and decide on what is the future of long term care in Ireland -  and ensure that there is the right mix of different supports to give people a choice depending on where they are in their lives.