The Irish healthcare system is failing to meet the growing needs of older people, an international nursing expert has warned.

According to Prof Sarah Kagan, professor of gerontological nursing at the University of Pennsylvania in the US, Ireland's healthcare system needs to place the same emphasis on the care of older people as it does on the care of children.

"Ireland needs to introduce an education concentration on older people's nursing. There are divisions of nursing for general, mental health, intellectual disabilities, children's and midwives, but not for gerontological - the vitally important care of older people," she noted.

She pointed out that when it comes to paediatric nurses, they understand issues such as different doses of medication that are appropriate for children. They also understand that children have different needs at different ages.

"Why on earth wouldn't we apply the same principle to care of the elderly?" she asked.

She insisted that countries like Ireland and the US have created a system that has made institutionalised ageism acceptable.

"One of the primary problems is that gerontological experts have tended to focus on the stereotypical frail elder in institutionalised residential care, and not the 96% of the older population who are out and about living their lives.

"We need to get past the stereotypes of caring for older people as being boring, uninteresting and sad, and look at it from the broader perspective and see that care of older people is some of the most exciting work you can do in social care," Prof Kagan said.

Also commenting on this issue, Prof Brendan McCormack, president of the All-Ireland Gerontological Nursing Association (AIGNA), again called for the ‘urgent introduction' of specialised nursing degree courses in the care of older people.

"Older people need to be protected and we need to introduce a new status of registered older person's nurse in Ireland," he said.