A distraught nurse has described her \u201cdevastation\u201d after hearing the bombshell news that the care home where her husband lived was closing.<\/p>\n
Jenny Creed\u2019s 80-year-old husband, Jim, an ex-upholsterer, was a resident of\u00a0 the 37-bed Gwastad Hall in Cefnybedd, near Wrexham, which has announced it\u2019s going into administration.<\/p>\n
At the same time it was revealed that Morfa Newydd Care Home in Greenfield in Flintshire, that\u2019s registered for 54 residents, was also closing<\/p>\n
Heartbroken staff at both homes have been given four weeks\u2019 notice and the owners have been working with Flintshire and Wrexham councils\u00a0 to find\u00a0 alternative accommodation for the residents.<\/p>\n
While many of the residents have been found places at other care homes, it\u2019s understood that a number of residents still have nowhere else to go.<\/p>\n
The news about Gwastad Hall and Morfa Newydd came a few weeks after it emerged that the 16-bed Bay Court Care Home in Kinmel Bay and the 28-bed Trewythen Hall Care Home in Gresford have already closed.<\/p>\n
It means that North East Wales has lost a total of 163 much needed care home beds at a time when the NHS is on its knees with hospitals unable to admit new patients because they can\u2019t discharge patients who\u2019ve completed their medical treatment.<\/p>\n
According to social care champions Care Forum Wales, another un-named care home in North East Wales is also on the verge of shutting down.<\/p>\n
Mother of four and grandmother of three Mrs Creed, 76, from Rossett, understands the plight of the sector better than most because she has been working in social care for the past 25 years.<\/p>\n
She is currently a member of staff at the Emral House Nursing Home in Wrexham and previously worked at the town\u2019s Strathalyn Care Home which closed a few years ago.<\/p>\n
Her husband\u00a0 of 54 years Jim moved to Gwastad Hall four months ago after suffering a series of debilitating strokes.<\/p>\n
News that the home was closing was, said Mrs Creed, a huge shock because it came out of the blue and she is grateful that a place has now been found for her husband at the Highfield Care Home which is part of the Pendine Park care organisation.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cIt was devastating when I heard the news. I went in to see my husband and I was met by the staff who said they had some bad news and they told me the place was closing. You could have knocked me over with a feather.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the staff had been crying who said the news came out of the blue. Nobody had an inkling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of residents to find places for and the nurses and carers have to find employment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult because we were just devastated. My husband had got close to the gentleman he sat next to for three months so he misses him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve popped into Gwastad this afternoon and they are all very emotional because all the people they have looked after for a long time are leaving. It\u2019s also a worry for them to find jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen these places close, they\u2019re gone. Strathalyn care home where I worked before has been converted into apartments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were very fortunate Jim has\u00a0 been offered a place at Highfield. It\u2019s very comfortable and the staff are lovely and not far from where I live.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was dreading he might have been given somewhere farther afield in somewhere like Llangollen or Mold. I know people whose relatives are out of the area and then it\u2019s difficult for visiting. It\u2019s very hard for them.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cIt\u2019s four months today since he went to Gwastad Hall and within three months he had been in and out of hospital five times.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw the ambulance waiting outside, with crew members making him tea and toast because of his diabetes. He was on a trolley for a couple of nights because there were no beds so we\u2019ve seen that side of it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
As someone who works in social care, Mrs Creed was familiar with the funding problems besetting the sector allied to staff shortages which were a related problem.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cIt\u2019s been underfunded for years. The powers that be should have stepped in but the bottom line is that social care doesn\u2019t get the funding it deserves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people receiving social care have worked all their lives. My husband has worked since he was 14 and they should be care for without having to worry.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy message is that it needs to be sorted out and that those providing the places for the elderly should be given the support they need.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t afford to lose these care homes because the hospitals just can\u2019t cope.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Mario Kreft MBE, the chair of Care Forum Wales, more care home closures were inevitable.<\/p>\n
The sector, he said, was in dire straits because of a triple whammy of chronic underfunding, the related problem of staffing shortages and the growing burden of red tape.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIt\u2019s utterly traumatic for everybody concerned when a care home closes down, for the residents, their loved ones and the staff who look after them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in the midst of a major crisis at the moment. There are\u00a0 no hospital beds for people who need them. Meanwhile, ambulances are queuing outside with their engines running and the paramedics on board are waiting for many hours to admit people who need hospital care.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce a care home closes it is highly unlikely that it will ever reopen and the cost of trying to replace these beds is incredibly high \u2013 around \u00a3150,000 a time so plugging the gap after the loss of 163 beds would cost an eye-watering\u00a0 \u00a325 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other problem is that if there are any new care homes being built, they won\u2019t necessarily be within the local communities they are now and we\u2019ll have vulnerable people being shipped out to facilities miles and miles away from their families and friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, local authorities have been paying lip service to the Welsh Government \u2018Let\u2019s agree to agree\u2019 guidance which is essentially a toolkit to calculate sustainable fees that reflect the true cost of providing care, instead of the current cloud cuckoo land approach of many councils and health boards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we need to do collectively in partnership is use public money wisely.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, it costs a great deal more money to keep somebody in hospital \u2013 more than \u00a35,000 a week \u2013 than it does to look after them in a care home or provide domiciliary care.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of the people stuck in hospitals across Wales should not be there and it would be better for them to be in a care home or receiving domiciliary care appropriate to their needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would also be a much better use of cash from the public purse which would free up a huge number of hospital beds and provide a straightforward, common sense way of alleviating the current crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut to do that we need to invest properly in social care so that the fees paid to providers match the real costs of care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would then also enable us to pay our fantastic front line staff what they deserve, helping to retain the current workforce and attract new recruits to this incredibly important profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current situation does not make any sense at all because the money being spent on keeping people in hospital unnecessarily is being wasted. It\u2019s a total nonsense.<\/p>\n
\u201cApart from the financial considerations, it puts those people at greater risk once their medical treatment is completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the problems is that society has not valued these jobs in social care and the chickens have firmly come home to roost.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, this is something Care Forum Wales\u00a0 has been predicting for a long time \u2013 the truth is that you can\u2019t fix the NHS without fixing social care.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t sort this out as a matter of urgency, things are going to get even worse and we are going to see even more care homes closing down with the inevitable consequence of more pressure on a beleaguered NHS.\u201d<\/p>\n