Geriatric doctors insist St Vincent de Paul should comply with care home standards

St Vincent de Paul should comply with a new set of national minimum standards for elderly homes, the Geriatric Medicine Society of Malta has insisted.

“Dignity, choice, autonomy, adequate bed space are just as important in St Vincent de Paul as in any care home, but aspects of clinical care, more associated with a hospital environment, must also be recognized and emphasized,” the GMSM said in a statement.

MaltaToday reported in October that the new minimum standards will not apply to St Vincent de Paul, with parliamentary secretary for the elderly Justyne Caruana explaining that Malta’s largest elderly home is not just a nursing home, but also provides hospital services.  

“In recent decades, St Vincent de Paul has been transformed from an institution to a long-term care facility that meets most of the functions that are generally attributed to geriatric hospitals,” Caruana said. “Hence it is best treated as a ‘sui generis’ facility rather than as a ‘care home’ in the strict sense of the word.”

Opposition MP Robert Cutajar had criticised the state home’s exemption, warning that it will lead to discrimination amongst the elderly.

While the GMSM inssited that the institution should comply with “standards specific to its perceived role”, they agreed that the institution cannot be easily or conveniently slotted in a definition of a care home.

“It is the only local long-term or chronic care facility that provides a twenty-four hour medical service on site led by consultant geriatricians. Many medical conditions and complications, even acute ones, are completely managed by this institution without having to transfer patients to Mater Dei.”

They noted that prior to 1987, St Vincent de Paul was officially called a hospital, before becoming a residence, and now a facility.

“Even road signs, till recently, have been confusing, one indicating St Vincent de Paul Residence, another St Vincent de Paul Hospital,” they said. “All these changes and differences indicate how difficult it is proving to be to classify this institution.”

“Over the past two years, the admission process into this facility has become even more selective with priority being given to those applicants suffering from complex medical and nursing problems and with high dependency levels, criteria which fall outside the remit of a typical care home.”

“Such an important document on standards, so long in coming, should not generate controversy when the same goal is being pursued by all – that of ensuring an optimal quality of life for older people in any form of local institution,” the organisation said. “If anything, all should now work together to push for these recommended standards to become law. Politicians, on too many occasions in the past, have hesitated on this issue at the crucial last hurdle moment. It must not be allowed to happen again.”