Care Home Resident, 103, To Be Evicted

A woman of 103 has been served with an eviction notice by a nursing home because she can’t afford to pay an extra £100 a week. Esme Collins requires round-the-clock nursing but could be removed from her home within 28 days. Her 84-year-old daughter claims she is being used as a pawn by the home in its battle for funding from the local authority.

{mosimage}Esme Simpson wept as she spoke of fears that her mother would not survive the upheaval of being shunted to another home.

“Moving her will be a death sentence,” she said.”She is an old lady who has worked hard all her life and never claimed a penny off the state. She should be allowed a bit of dignity in her final few years.”

Mrs Collins, a great-great-grandmother who retired when she was 75 to become a volunteer for ‘meals on wheels’, moved into Abbeymoor nursing home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, due to illness.

She suffers from severe osteoporosis and is bed-ridden. Yet officials at the county council claim her needs do not meet the criteria set down for financial support. As a result, the home called her daughter in for a meeting and said they had no alternative but to increase her weekly fees to cover the additional cost for her care.

“I don’t understand where they draw the line,” said Mrs Simpson, who lives nearby and visits her mother daily. “How much worse does she have to be? She has broken just about every bone in her body. They don’t even bother repairing the fractures any more because her bones are like chalk.”

Mrs Simpson, a widow, said she had not yet told her mother of the ultimatum issued by the care home amid fears for her health. “How can anyone who calls themselves a human being turf out a frail 103-year-old lady?” she added. “I am very bitter about all this and it is worrying me enormously. I have told the social services and the homeowner that I will hold them responsible if Mum doesn’t survive this.”

Mrs Collins, a mother of one who has been a widow since the 1940s, has one grandson, four great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. She began her working life in service as a maid. She then worked as a Naafi cook and a catering manager at a stately home. She currently pays £400 a week from her state and private pensions for her place at the 35-bed nursing home.

Last night, the owner Mark Sutter blamed the decision to evict her on Nottinghamshire County Council’s refusal to provide funding. “It is a very sad and regrettable decision all round and it is not something we have done lightly,” he said.

“I am disappointed, concerned and staggered at the way the council approach the determination of fees and how they are so rigid in their criteria. At the moment we are having to heavily subsidise each and every resident from the company’s resources at around £150 a week.”

However, Worksop MP John Mann said: “They are trying to use this 103-year-old woman as a piggy in the middle to force the county council to pay more. It’s outrageous.”

Annie Stevenson, senior policy adviser at Help the Aged, said: “This is absolutely unacceptable. She is being used as a pawn in a game between two parties entrusted to look after her. I can’t believe this is happening to a woman of 103. She’s been living there for ten years. There’s just no way that they should be considering evicting her.”

Forced to cut costs, councils all over the country have been slashing back the level of care they offer to the elderly. In an assessment of Mrs Collins’ care needs, local social services chiefs and Bassettlaw Primary Care Trust found she was “very dependent” but would not increase her to “nursing” rate level which would have made her eligible for funding.

David Pearson, the council’s strategic director, said: “We are extremely concerned about the owner’s decision to terminate the placement of Esme Collins.”

Alternative arrangements have been made to move Mrs Collins ten miles away to a less expensive home in Retford.

The threat of eviction facing Mrs Collins comes a year after widow Alice Pink, 93, took a fatal overdose of painkillers when she was forced to move out of her care home in East Sussex.