IT HAS EMERGED that residents at a Dublin nursing home may have been subjected to physical and verbal abuse at the hands of their carers.

Rostrevor Nursing Home in Rathgar was taken over by the HSE on Friday after the Health Information and Quality Authority secured court order to have the registration of the home cancelled.

An affidavit containing details of alleged abuses at Rostrevor was forwarded from HIQA to the Gardaí and the details of the abuse have now been made public. RTE details abuse ranging from a care worker banging a resident’s head on a door, and the incident then being covered up, to a male worker taking a female resident alone into a bathroom. The resident was then heard screaming by other staff members. There were also reports of residents being kicked and slapped.

A spokesperson for HIQA has told TheJournal.ie that it is not making any comment on such a sensitive matter, but that the information is now in the public domain.

The Irish Independent reports that staff members reported incidents to HIQA in a location away from Rostrevor, as they feared for their jobs and working visas. The home’s owner, Therese Lipsett, was struck off the nursing register in December 2010 for failing to address issues at Rostrevor, but she continued to be involved until March of this year.

Breaking News reports that the owners of the nursing home will appeal its closure, as they had no opportunity to review the HSE’s application to shut it down. The HSE failed to have the home closed in 2004, and in 2005 Lipsett was fined €8,000 for failing to provide adequate care. She claimed at the time that she had been the “victim of a malicious campaign”.

The Minister of State with responsibility for Older People, Kathleen Lynch has told RTE that she is horrified at the allegations of abuse, and said that it was worrying that whistleblowers were so afraid to be interviewed by HIQA.