A new ESRI report has found nearly 30 homes closed between 2020 - 2022.
Action is being urged to prevent more nursing home closures.
An ESRI report shows 28 homes closed down between 2020 and 2022 - two of those were in the midlands.
It also shows that Laois needs an additional 95 beds in order to meet the national average, while Westmeath and Offaly need 10 and seven, respectively.
Tadhg Daly is the CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland and says he can't see 2024 being much better for the people he represents.
In a statement to Midlands 103, he also says:
"ESRI has written down in black and white that a critical juncture has come for nursing homes.
This is the latest in a number of independent reports.
Now ESRI, as an important research and policy body, is seeing the crisis that is mounting and we call on the Government to take note of it and act immediately.
As ESRI notes one in five smaller nursing homes has already closed and the private and voluntary system are being starved of funding, with huge disparity in funding to private and voluntary homes compared to the fees being paid to the State’s own facilities.
ESRI calls out too that general inflation outpaced funding increases provided to private and voluntary homes.
This crisis cannot continue without serious consequences for the State and for care of the older person. NHI has made repeated warnings on the sustainability of the sector which have been ignored by the Department of Health.
Entire models of care are being wiped out and the entire sector is under threat by a failure of the State to recognise the disparities in funding and by failing to provide for rampant inflation in costs.
While there has been significant consolidation and investment into the Irish nursing home sector, this has all but ceased given the dramatic increase in operating costs and failure to address the funding crisis.
There will be no new bed capacity provided once the small number that are already under construction and prefunded are completed."
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