Babies ‘unsupervised’
HSE inspectors allege creche was understaffed and chaotic, and left children unattended
A CRECHE had too few staff and was unclean and chaotic, HSE officials told a court yesterday.
Inspectors went to the creche and said they saw someone walk in an unlocked front door. They also allege babies were unsupervised and said the owner left the nursery to collect a child.
The HSE is prosecuting the creche for eight alleged breaches of preschool care regulations.
HSE South environmental heath officer Lorraine Potter and colleague Eleanor Buckley inspected Tiny Tots Creche in Killeagh, Co. Cork, in November last year.
Ms Potter told a court yesterday while they were there, the front door was briefly unlocked, allowing an individual to enter and come into the reception hall. She said: ‘You’re supposed to prevent unauthorised access. Somebody walked into the reception hall. It only takes a moment for an incident to occur. We ask that all facilities are secured.’
She alleged creche owner Hazel O’Mahony had left the facility to collect a child at the time.
The HSE alleges the baby room, the toddler room and the pre-school room were understaffed at different times during the inspection.
Ms Potter said on one occasion, the infants in the baby room were unsupervised, and that a child, aged between one and two, climbed up on a child’s bench and sat on a low table, designed specifically for children. Ms O’Mahony came in and took the child off the table
Ms Potter said there were seven infants in the baby room at the time. She said one of the staff members was on a break and the other was in the changing room changing a child. The court was told there should have been three staff members at all times in the room.
She said she felt staff were ‘under a bit of pressure because they were understaffed and that it was chaotic at times’.
The court also heard how cheese was stored in a container on the window sill of the baby room for more than five hours before being given to a child. ‘We require that perishable foods would be stored in a fridge,’ said Ms Potter.
Ms Potter also alleged the creche had dirty radiators, a hole in the wall of the lobby and dirt in the crevices of an activity centre. ‘ I’d have thought this was poor cleaning over a period of time,’ she said.
She said she found a steel bar in an unlocked drawer in the preschool room, which she said could be accessed by children.
Frank Buttimer, defending, said the premises were clean and the hole in the wall had been fixed.
He said Ms O’Mahony had no knowledge of a bar in a drawer.
He said it would be flatly denied his client left the premises and said she stepped outside the door for a few seconds.
Mr Buttimer said at no stage of the entire day, were babies left unattended. He said a staff member was in the immediately adjacent nappy changing room and that the room was ‘plainly visible’ from the nappy changing room.
Ms O’Mahony, of Tiny Tots Creche, Killeagh, Co. Cork, denied breaching Childcare Preschool Services Regulations at Midleton District Court.
The case continues.