THE family of one former resident of a Tyrone care home are calling for an independent review into the circumstances under which the home closed.

The Valley Nursing Home in Clogher closed on January 6, 2020, after the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) deemed that Healthcare Ireland, the care provider, was unfit to operate the home.

However, one family member of a former resident disagrees with the closure of the home.

Gerry Cullen's brother, Donal, had been a resident for the past number of years. Speaking on the closure of the Valley Nursing Home, he said: “It wasn’t a perfect nursing home, but there is no such thing as a perfect nursing home.

"We live in a society where people think there is no smoke without fire, but we [as the family of a resident] do not think there was a fire in this case."

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A RQIA report from an unannounced inspection on October 21, 2020, seen by The Impartial Reporter, states: “RQIA were concerned that the home had not been maintained in accordance with the regulations, and significant areas of the home could not be used by patients.

“Patients’ furniture, curtains and flooring was found to be damaged, and significant malodour was identified in one area of the home.”

The RQIA was also critical of the home for its treatment of the dignity of patients.

Mr. Cullen asked that if the RQIA did not see the care home providers as being fit to operate the Clogher Valley Home, why did they not close all the homes operated by Healthcare Ireland, which operates 14 homes across Northern Ireland?

Mr. Cullen’s brother has since moved to a nursing home in Tyrone, which is also operated by Healthcare Ireland.

He said: “The people who are paying the price for this closure are the residents.

"We feel that families and residents had no influence over the decision-making over the closure. I never suspected that my brother was not receiving quality care; when he first went into that home he was a dying man, but the nurses and care home staff gave him a [good] quality of care.

"We, as a family, have no issues with Health Care Ireland,” he said.

Mr. Cullen wants to work with care home providers and law-makers to help put residents and their families at the centre of decision-making in care home facilities.

He said: “We want a review into what went wrong at the Valley Care Home; we would like to see an honest determination of what went wrong.

“I not only speak on behalf of my brother and other families who had a resident in the home, but also in support of the nursing and care staff in the home, as I feel their personal integrity has been called into question by the media over this closure.

“We need to find out what went wrong in the Valley Care Home, and prevent it from going wrong in other care homes in the country.

"The community for the home is now gone, but it shouldn’t go silently,” he said.