The daughter of a 94-year-old woman has warned her mother will die if she is forced to leave a care home at threat of closure.

Ham & High: Cllr Zena Brabazon said: The whole thing is being done back to front. Picture: JON KINGCllr Zena Brabazon said: The whole thing is being done back to front. Picture: JON KING (Image: Archant)

Liz Ciokajlo’s mum Ruby, who has dementia, has been bed-ridden for the past 10 years and is losing the ability to swallow, faces being moved out of Osborne Grove nursing home after council chiefs voted to close it after a daming report from health watchdogs.

At a meeting of Haringey Council’s adults and health scrutiny panel, Ms Ciokajlo, from Muswell Hill, said: “I don’t understand why the council wants to close the home. The staff are wonderful. It’s a beautiful place. If my mother is forced to move, I think she will die.”

Last June inspectors from health watchdog the Care Qulaity Commission (CQC) rated the home, in Upper Tollington Park, inadequate after residents went without baths and inspectors had to ask staff to seek attention for a pensioner suffering severe constipation. In its last inspection last September the CQC removed the home from special measures after seeing improvements.

However, Haringey chiefs voted to close the home in December before a report on options for its future was published.

“The whole thing is being done back to front,” Cllr Zena Brabazon said. She went on to warn that the council was at risk: “Residents have rights. This is a minefield. The council is laying itself open to legal challenges.”

But adult social services chief Beverley Tarka said: “We have due regard to residents’ needs.”

A panel of councillors listened as relatives of Osborne Grove residents, including Ms Ciokajlo, told them how they failed to see why a home which opened in 2007 was closing and that they felt ill-informed about their rights.

Michelle Rodda, whose mother is in Osborne Grove said: “The residents are not up to moving. They are at a point in their lives where they need respect, not eviction from their home.”

Asked if the decision to close could be reversed after local elections in May, adult social care chief Cllr Bernice Vanier – who at the start of the debate insisted the meeting was not the right place to discuss Osborne Grove – said it was a decision for the next administration.

At the end of the meeting on Thursday the panel voted unanimously to ask council chiefs to pause the closure until the results of the options survey became available.