Would you let someone like HIM look after your mother?
A SHOCKING number of care home workers have been disciplined for mistreating vulnerable residents and fellow colleagues.
Reports published by The Scottish Social Services Council – which maintains the register of approved carers and regulates professional standards – show that in the past year 55 staff have been removed from their positions in either adult or child care homes across the country for physically, sexually or verbally abusing those in their care.
A total of 20 staff were struck off and a further eight were suspended for abuse or neglect.
Appalling examples include Gillian Smyth, who worked as a care assistant at Braemount Nursing Home in Paisley, who was struck off for shouting at and pushing a blind elderly woman with dementia, refusing to help an elderly man when he required assistance and threatening to take his call buzzer away from him – and refusing to take an elderly women who suffered from frequent urinary tract infections to the toilet.
At Lunan Court care home in Arbroath, Angus, support worker Marie Galloway was struck off for physically abusing an elderly woman by swinging her around the room by her hands, causing her to crash onto her bed.
Galloway was also found to have pushed an elderly man down onto a toilet seat and pulled him so violently his pyjamas ripped.
Care assistant Barry Wilton, who was employed at the Balhousie St Ronan’s Care Home, in Dundee, was fired after he verbally abused an elderly woman and told her ‘just hurry up and die’, and ‘I wish there was a bomb under that chair’, while repeatedly refusing to help her to the toilet.
Last month, care worker Effie Mackintosh was removed from her position at St Olaf Care Home in Nairn after allegations of abuse spanning over 15 years surfaced. These including allegations of shouting and insulting elderly residents, calling several a ‘b***h and striking one.
And in June this year, care assistant Isobel Wallace was removed from her post at Cochrane Care Home, in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, after it was found she had falsified the records of one resident after realising they had passed away during the night.
It was also found that Ms Wallace verbally and physically abused one resident and failed to properly wash faeces from another’s hands and feet.
Last night Lesley Carcary, director of Action on Elder Abuse Scotland, said: ‘We are aware of the growing number of cases in Scotland where individuals in such roles have abused their position of trust. There seems to be an acceptance in some care homes that older people have no choice but to put up with neglect, abuse and conditions that we would never tolerate. Many older vulnerable people are frightened to speak out about the abuse they endure. It is imperative that such cases are considered in criminal terms, where necessary, so that those who abuse – be it an individual or an institution – face the full force of the law.’