HYWEL Dda Health Board should provide nursing care at an Aberystwyth care home to spare residents from having to be moved outside Ceredigion, the county’s AM has said.

Methodist Homes Association has announced that it will be scrapping its nursing care unit at Hafan y Waun by the end of March, sparking fears that residents will be forced out of the home and moved miles away from their families and friends.

Elin Jones, Plaid Cymru’s shadow health minister and AM for Ceredigion, has hit out at MHA for “breaking promises” and insisted that the health board should provide nursing care at the home to ensure residents do not have to leave the county.

Ms Jones also warned that the decision to reclassify the 20 nursing care beds as residential care was likely to have a knock-on effect on homes operated by Ceredigion council.

She said: “MHA has twice backtracked on its promises to Ceredigion. When it first started the Hafan y Waun project dementia nursing care was promised. That did not materialise.

“Now it is withdrawing from general nursing care, which is much needed in Ceredigion. Only providing residential care puts MHA in direct competition with county council provision, thus further risking the future of county council-run homes.

“Fewer nursing care beds will now be available in the Aberystwyth area and more people will need to be placed outside of Ceredigion. Moving people a long way from home at their most vulnerable time of life is not acceptable. This has been happening for too long for those needing nursing dementia care, now we face even larger numbers out-of-county.

“This is a crisis in elderly care in Aberystwyth and it requires radical thinking in the short-term and longer-term planning for a sustainable mix of care into the future. I believe Hywel Dda Health Board, in conjunction with the county council, should now intervene urgently with MHA and look to directly provide nursing care beds at Hafan y Waun.

“The home was build in partnership with the public sector of the people of Ceredigion and the public sector now needs to secure the future of nursing care from Hafan y Waun.”

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