Fears aired over resident safety at Mulvey House

FEARS have been raised over resident safety in an assisted living facility in Strabane following revelations that overnight cover for emergencies has been non-existent for the past three weeks.

The Chronicle was made aware of the situation by a resident in the Apex-run Mulvey House, who said it is “pure luck” that a scenario hasn’t arisen where an ambulance was required.

The resident, who wishes to remain anonymous amid concerns they may face expulsion for speaking out, explained that the crux of the issue is that emergency cord activations are going unattended.

The resident said, “The way the system works in Mulvey House is, when an emergency cord is pulled then that goes through to the on-site front office between the hours of 9am and 5pm. After 5pm and on weekends, there is no-one on-site and any emergency cord activation is supposed to be picked up by an outside service by the name of Radius Connect 24 so that they can contact the emergency services.”

They continued, “However, since March 23, incidents where a cord is pulled have been left unattended and are only being dealt with the next morning.”

Upon learning of this cover outage the resident said they contacted Apex Housing Association by email and outlined concerns that vulnerable people living in Mulvey House are being left without any semblance of assistance.

However they received no response.

“Simply put, the situation is just not good enough,” the resident said. “This is a very serious lapse in Apex’s delivery of service for some of the most vulnerable and elderly in our community. Apex should be ensuring that they have the relevant cover and shouldn’t be letting a situation like this arise. It is pure luck there hasn’t been a situation in the past three weeks where an ambulance has been required. Apex and Radius Connect24 need to sort this out quickly before someone gets hurt.”

Acting on behalf of residents, Strabane councillor Paul Gallagher added, “This is a dereliction of duty on the part of Apex and Radius Connect in my book. It’s left the vulnerable more susceptible to vulnerability and this has to be addressed before someone gets seriously hurt.”

The Chronicle contacted both Apex Housing Association and Radius Connect 24 for answers. A spokesperson for the Apex said, “We are aware of an issue in relation to the telecare alarm system at Mulvey House. In late March, we received an out-of-hours report from a tenant and quickly had a contractor on site to examine and reset the alarm. Since then, an issue with the system’s out-of-hours service has been identified. As a result, we have provided additional onsite staff out of hours and have been working diligently to ensure all alarms are working correctly. We hope this will be completed in the coming days.”

At the time of going to print, no-one from Radius Connect 24 was available to comment.