Memo compares IHC bath ban to past troubles
An internal memo within Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People compares a prohibition on baths in disability residential homes to ‘‘past institutional indictments’’.
IHC’S bath ban has been an issue between service provider Idea Services, families and Whaikaha since it stopped baths and removed taps from its residential homes in September last year.
At the time, Idea Services said the decision to implement the ban was a result of being charged by
Worksafe after a 63-year-old woman in its care drowned in Taranaki in 2016. Nathan Booker, 15, was also under the care of Idea Services when he drowned in 2014.
However, Worksafe rejects that banning baths was a solution to prevent further deaths.
IHC group chief executive Ralph Jones said there was no consultation with residents or family members over the decision to ban baths.
Idea Services was ordered to pay $75,000 to the woman’s family, while costs of $43,278 were awarded to Worksafe.
As a result of the issue, Napier man Glenn Marshall made a complaint to the United Nations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and to the Ombudsman’s office.
The internal memo from Whaikaha dated August 2022, and released under the Official Information Act request which Marshall included in his complaints, stated a recommendation in relation to Idea Services.
It includes a recommendation from a witness to ‘‘review if institutional neglect in current service provision is still relevant and pervasive today’’. It added that recipients of the organisation’s services were ‘‘very unhappy’’.
The witness described the bath ban as a ‘‘human rights issues that has a resonance with past institutional indictments’’.
Marshall’s son Eamon is 20 years old and is disabled. Although his son is not under IHC care, he says the issue is personal for him because he sees the therapeutic benefits a bath has for his son.
He said there were emotional, physical and spiritual benefits for disabled people having a bath – ‘‘it’s the feeling of weightlessness and warmth . . . it’s a really nurturing thing for them’’.
‘‘The disabled people are the ones who pay the price,’’ he said of the bath ban.
Whaikaha chief executive Paula Tesoriero said the ministry was working very closely with Idea Services and meeting with the family group of representatives to understand their concerns.
‘‘It’s a really nurturing thing for them.’’ Glenn Marshall