Caring under pressure

DISTURBING reading indeed (Cruel care home nurse struck off, August 27). I think back to the carers my mum had when she was looked after at home, suffering from MND. Most of them were Polish and we couldn’t have asked for better carers. On a few occasions, some carers were aggressive and impatient with my mum, and sadly, they were Scottish. That’s not to say all Scottish carers are incompetent, but based on what I’ve seen, this is an area where we would benefit from migration.

The care homes we tried (despite having good reviews) were absolutely awful and we had to go with getting her care at home as some things we were seeing were simply below par. The homes were only concerned about money, but it looked very apparent it was not being reinvested into the home.

If incidents like this keep coming up, I think the whole assisted suicide argument is going to surface again. Who wants to work hard in life and spend their final years getting mistreated? Assisted suicide is by no means a replacement for being cared for, but I strongly believe it should be an option if you match a certain criteria: 1) You have a terminal illness 2) You’re compos mentis that you do not want to prolong your suffering.

It just seems that many carers and support facilities are overburdened and choose to vent their stress out on the patient.

Stephen Munro, posted online