A friend is currently on a placement in a care home as part of her nursing training. A few weeks ago, she described the things she’d seen on her few weeks there and why she couldn’t wait to move on to the next placement. She nursed 14 patients, on a floor which held 21. She began looking in on the other 7. These patients generally could not do anything for themselves, most not able to talk and many not able to move. This being said, they had a selection of care assistants assigned to them to take care of their needs.
Toilets: Patients each had a bed pan and toilet, which the care assistants should help them to and from. However, the bed pan washer had broken, and rather than get it fixed and help the patients use the toilets in the meantime, the care assistants had taken to putting all patients in incontinence pants (nappies) and letting the patients go whilst lying in their beds. This was because they were ‘too busy’ to lift the patients out of bed when they needed to go. As a sidenote, patients are only changed at three scheduled times a day, meaning these often incontinent patients are regularly left sitting in their sh*t for many hours each day. Throughout my friend’s time there, she regularly observes the care assistants spending several hours each day chatting and watching tv in the communal area, as well as ‘nipping out’ to do some shopping or errands, as well a taking full lunch breaks. Clearly not busy enough.
Social interaction: Interestingly, the communal area where the assistants tend to spend their time is never used by the patients, as whilst care home guidance says they should spend a few hours with other patients in this area each day, it’s ‘too much effort’ to take the patients out of their beds, and so they NEVER do it. So basically, aside from when they are washed, these patients spend 24hours a day, alone in their rooms and unmoving in their beds. Neglected.
Hygiene: Aside from patients sitting in their excrement most of the day, there is also an issue with washing. To preserve a patient’s dignity, when washing they should be unclothed section by section so they are never completely naked. However, this is also apparently too time consuming, and so patients are stripped naked, showered/hosed down, then returned to their beds. My friend observes that some animals are treated with more respect than these people.
Feeding: My friend walked in on a care assistant forcefully pushing porridge down the throat of an old man, who had not been propped up in his bed and was lying almost flat on his back (a position which makes it extremely difficult to digest food). Due to his inability to eat the food at the speed with which the care assistant was ‘feeding’ it, it was dripping all over his chin, neck and even down his top. The assistant made no effort to clean this up or move the patient into a more comfortable position. In response to my friend’s ‘what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ the assistant replied ‘Don’t tell me what to do, I’ve been doing this for ten years’.
And finally – pain management. The key responsibility of the care assistant is to manage the pain of the patients in their last stages of life. My friend says this is not a priority in the care home she works at all. Patients are never reviewed and infrequently checked on.
If this was how a child was treated, social services would step in and call it child abuse. Yet because these people are elderly and are perhaps thought no longer able contribute to society, they’re neglected and treated with greater disrespect than any other area of society. Because most cannot talk, they cannot tell their family (if they have any) about their poor treatment and if an official does come round to check on the home, it is so easy for the assistants to suddenly abide by the book and make it seem like it is common practice for them. Imagine if it was your own grandparents or parents. It’d sicken you.
No comments:
Post a Comment