Cleaner at Aras Attracta ‘also worked as a carer’
ONE of the Áras Attracta care workers charged with assaulting a resident was a cleaner who doubled up as a care assistant.
Kathleen King, who is alleged to have assaulted a resident in November 2014, didn’t have any qualifications to look after residents in her care.
Her barrister Eoin Garavan told Castlebar District Court that all she was qualified to do was, in effect, ‘lift weights, fight fires and wash her hands properly’. She was, he told the court, a domestic who mopped toilet floors and worked in the kitchens washing dishes but was also used as a health care assistant.
She is one of five workers charged with assault in November 2014 at the Co. Mayo care facility in Swinford. The State’s case is against Ms King, 56, of Straide, Foxford, Co. Mayo, and four other workers who are all alleged to each have committed an assault in Bungalow 3 in November 2014 at the facility. The others are Pat McLoughlin, 56, of Lalibela, Mayfield, Claremorris, Co. Mayo; Christina Delaney, 35, from Lissatava, Hollymount, Co. Mayo; Joan Walsh, 42, from Curry, Co. Sligo, and Anna Ywunong Botsimbo, 34, of Low Park Avenue, Charlestown, Co. Mayo. All five deny the charge.
They were filmed interacting with staff by RTÉ investigating care standards in the HSE for a Prime Time programme broadcast on December 9, 2014. Segments from 190 hours of CCTV footage were shown to the court yesterday.
In one segment, Ms King was shown shouting at a resident known as Miss C, telling her to ‘get back up that chair’.
Miss C, a 66-year-old sufferer of severe osteoporosis and arthritis, was seen starting to slide out of her chair and Ms King gets up and pushes her back into the chair. And she shouts at her: ‘Don’t you dare get back up off that chair.’
One of Ms King’s roles was ‘to keep her from sliding to the floor’ and her defence was that she was protecting the resident from herself.
Mr Garavan said: ‘She did it for the good of Miss C.’
She said of her actions: ‘My instructions were to keep [Miss C] on the chair and her feet elevated so she wouldn’t fall on the floor. It was a priority that she wouldn’t injure herself. All I wanted to do was keep this woman safe and keep her on the chair. If she broke her hip, I’d be in trouble, my job would be on the line. It was an instant reaction. I don’t even remember it... It’s poor judgement and I wish every day it didn’t happen. There was no malice behind it.’
Another of the care workers Joan Walsh, a staff nurse, was filmed slapping a resident named only as Miss B from on her hand.
Ms Walsh said: ‘I regret it. I don’t recall the incident. It’s not something I would do. In hindsight I would like to think I would do things very differently. I think it was poor judgment in an instant reaction and it’s not something I am proud of.’
Martin Maguire, clinical nurse specialist at Áras Attracta, was asked what he thought of Ms Walsh’s actions. He told the court: ‘It’s unacceptable, not an appropriate care management procedure.’
Judge Devins adjourned the case until next Friday, when she is expected to give a date for reaching a verdict in the cases of Ms King, Ms Walsh and Mr McLoughlin.