Bob’s tears over move

Rodney Edwards • Published 26 Aug 2010 16:00 0 Comments

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The row over the future of Drumhaw Residential Home has intensified in the last 48 hours and today The Impartial Reporter can reveal that three elderly residents of the home are to be moved by the Western Trust to “alternative accommodation” by Monday.

This newspaper understands that a social worker visited the home yesterday with the intention of “facilitating” residents moving, the first of which, is scheduled for tomorrow (Friday). It’s also understood the owner of a nearby home visited Drumhaw yesterday to discuss potential moves.

During a meeting of social workers and care workers in Enniskillen on Friday, the Director of Primary Care and Older people, Alan Corry-Finn informed his staff that Drumhaw was closing “sooner rather than later”, contradicting Health Minister Michael McGimpsey’s promise that all residents could spend their final days there before the home closed for good.

During the meeting it’s claimed that Mr. Corry-Finn instructed staff to “go and move the residents on” to alternative accommodation, such as the Gortacharn Care Home nearby. But when contacted by this newspaper yesterday, Mr. Corry-Finn denied that claim.

A close source said: “Mr. Corry-Finn said to go out and move the residents to alternative homes. The care managers were shocked to hear this. They were always of the understanding that the residents could remain in Drumhaw as long as their needs were met. One woman did ask him about the Health Minister’s earlier decision but he said regardless of what Mr. McGimpsey had said, I’m saying, Drumhaw House is closing. You move them on. He said they were a strain on our purse strains,” -- another claim refuted by Mr. Corry-Finn when contacted by us yesterday.

Following Mr. Corry-Finn’s “firm instructions”, our close source says staff feel “bullied” into “putting pressure” on the elderly residents to move.

“Care workers and social workers feel they must move the residents. They feel they have to say to the residents, there’s a bed in X, Y and Z -- take it or else. The residents have been through a long enough consultation period about the future of Drumhaw. The trauma and stress of the vulnerable residents is just appalling. It is disgusting the way older people’s services in Fermanagh are being targeted. The Health Minister said one thing and they are doing another. They have gone back on their promise. Drumhaw should also be offering respite care but they have been instructed not to provide that service any longer and they are not taking on any new referrals,” added our source.

90-year-old Bob Barnett fought for his country so that “everyone had the right of freedom”. Today he believes the same country is trying to “take away” his freedom by “forcing” him out of his final home.

Sitting by himself in his small and neat bedroom in Drumhaw, Bob cuts a lonely figure. The usually upbeat and energetic familiar face is tired, upset and at the end of his tether. The threat of having to leave the place he considers his final home has become too much to bear and clutching a picture of his wedding to his “beloved Edith” over 40 years ago, tears roll down his face.

“I sit in this chair everyday. I have my mirror up on the wall opposite the bedroom window so I can see the birds outside when I’m sitting down. I put the telly on the odd time. I watch Coronation Street, a football match or maybe Emmerdale. I read the Bible for about ten minutes each day. The time passes quickly enough. I have my wife Edith’s photo beside me as well. She’s five years dead in December. We never had any children and most of my family are dead. I’m left on my own now and this is my home and I refuse to leave it. I’m not fit to go anywhere,” he said.

There’s no question about it -- Bob and the 12 other pensioners in Drumhaw are being looked after very well by the dedicated staff. In the 40 minutes, this newspaper spent in Bob’s company on Tuesday, he was visited on three occasions by staff inquiring about his wellbeing. But it is the way in which this situation has been treated by officials at the Western Trust that has caused such an upset.

“I’m paying £426 of my own money per week to live here. I love it here. The care is the best to be got and the women looking after me are the best you could find. They feed me well, I get anything I want. Sometimes I take fish, sometimes I take steak, maybe a bit of fowl sometimes. They look after us well. It’s the people at the top that are upsetting me. There the ones that are making an old man very upset. I am killed with depression with them and I will not apologise for anything I say in this newspaper,” said the emotional pensioner.

Lying awake at night, Bob is finding it difficult to sleep these night because he is unable to think about anything else.

“I would wake up at about three o’clock in the morning and not sleep, I am constantly thinking about it. Thinking what I’m going to say, what I’m going to do and how I can stand up for the old folk here. I’ve went round most of the pensioners here and I’ve asked them if they are prepared to back me and they have said they will. We are going to fight this. We won’t let them throw us out of Drumhaw. I have worked hard all my life. I served my country in the war and this is the thanks I’m getting from my country. It’s a downright disgrace but I will fight it to the very end,” he said.

Sinn Fein Councillor Brian McCaffrey is “very concerned”. He has described the situation as “alarming” and says the removal of residents in the coming days is in contradiction to what the Health Minister has said: “There is most certainly blame in all this,” he said.

MLA Arlene Foster says she is “angry” with the Western Trust: “I am cross with them. They don’t seem to have learned that they need to be open in relation to Drumhaw. They dealt with it dreadfully beforehand and I would have thought they would have been very open with how they deal with it now. I have said to the Chief Executive in the past, if they are going to make decisions or they are going to have to go to elderly people then they should look to the elected representatives to help them. All of that seems to have gone out the window. I have to hear from an elderly man who is upset and then I have to go to the Trust to ask them what’s going on. Instead of running after them and looking for answers we should be told initially but there’s no partnership there and I am disappointed about that,” she said.

In an interview with The Impartial Reporter yesterday, the Director of Primary Care and Older people, Mr. Corry-Finn refuted most of the allegations.

The first of which was the claim that during Friday’s meeting he said Drumhaw was a “strain on the purse strings” and “needed to close”.

“That is absolutely not true. Absolutely not true. I absolutely refute that. I never mentioned anything to do with money and Drumhaw. I encouraged staff to follow their professional responsibilities to keep residents and their families up-to-date with what options locally were open to them,” he said.

On the claim that staff feel “bullied” to “encourage” residents to move, he said: “I see absolutely no reason why staff should feel bullied. Staff are not being bullied but they have to do the responsible task. The responsible task is to keep residents and families informed of local opportunities.”

Mr. Corry-Finn also said he believed the situation at Drumhaw has been “well managed” and when asked if he had relatives in a care home himself, he said: “I don’t see the relevance in that. Yes I do have relatives in a home but I will not go into detail on that. I don’t think my personal opinion is relevant to that at all,” he fumed.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 26 Aug 10

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