The Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has blamed carelessness in the Health Service Executive (HSE) eight-year delay in processing an elderly woman’s application for a public long-term care bed. The elderly woman’s GP first applied without success for a public long-term care bed for her in 1995. It took additional applications and the intervention of the Ombudsman to obtain a public bed in 2004 just before she passed away. In the meantime, the woman was housed in a private nursing home with the fees paid in part by her state pension and a means-tested nursing-home subvention and the balance paid by her son. Her son built up debts to pay for his mother’s private nursing home.
The Ombudsman found that it was simple carelessness that caused the original application to be ignored, rather than anything more serious. The Ombudsman ruled that be compensation of €56,500 should be paid.
The HSE has explained that human error led to the delays and has resolved the particular case.