3 days ago
Ireland probes mistreatment at care homes run by French company
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DUBLIN: Ireland's health ministry Thursday ordered a probe into French care homes operator Emeis, the country's biggest private nursing home provider, after a television programme alleged residents in two places were mistreated.
The investigative programme aired undercover footage of elderly residents allegedly forced into chairs, and being ignored when they pleaded for help to go to the toilet.
The programme, shown on Irish state broadcaster RTE on Wednesday, also showed some residents were left in incontinence pads for so long their clothes were soaked.
The scenes were "extremely distressing" and "wholly unacceptable", health ministry official Kieran O'Donnell told RTE Thursday.
The ministry has ordered the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) to launch a review of all nursing homes operated by Emeis, he said.
Offering its "sincere apologies", the firm said "this is not the standard of care it expects and not what residents and their families deserve", and pledged to review all operations across Ireland.
Emeis, which was called Orpea until last year, run 27 private nursing homes in Ireland.
The company entered the Irish market in 2020 through the takeover of another portfolio.
HIQA, who are tasked with inspecting care homes, said Emeis-run homes including the two featured in Wednesday's programme had triggered recent concerns.
Earlier this year, HIQA ordered one of them to cease admitting new residents, citing "significant concerns".
Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke told RTE an institution should not be operating "if people are not being cared for appropriately, with dignity, with respect".
"HIQA need to really enforce that and to ensure that everyone has a basic level of dignity and care that they deserve in their twilight years," said Burke.
Emeis changed its name to turn the page on a scandal in France when its homes came under scrutiny following the 2022 publication of the book "The Gravediggers" by independent journalist Victor Castan.
It cited employees and relatives claiming that residents were at times left for hours with soiled underwear or went days without care as managers sought to maximise profit margins.
Orpea contested those claims as "untruthful, scandalous and injurious".
