Sturgeon told of care home woman’s fears

A 94-YEAR-OLD woman with dementia who faces being “evicted” from her care home is struggling with increasing anxiety as a result, Nicola Sturgeon has been told.

Labour leader Richard Leonard highlighted the case of Nancy Sutherland, a resident in one of the 12 homes being closed by Bield after it decided to “withdraw from the residential care home market”.

The First Minister accepted the move would be “unsettling” and “traumatic” for those con- cerned. She pledged the Scottish Government would “do everything we can to guarantee continuity of care for these residents and make sure there is no compromise whatsoever in the quality of their care”.

Mr Leonard spoke of the “growing crisis in care provision” in Scotland, claiming the sector was “on the brink of collapse”.

Some 160 elderly people facing losing their home while hundreds of Bield workers risk being made redundant as a result of the company’s decision in October to stop operating in the care home sector.

Mr Leonard pressed the SNP leader on the issue at First Minister’s Questions, saying: “One woman, Nancy Sutherland, is 94, she has been a Bield tenant for 23 years and along with 166 other elderly people she is about to lose her home.

“Mrs Sutherland has dementia so every day she has to relive the trauma, every day she asks her daughter where she will be moving to and every day her anxiety levels rise.

“They rise because her daughter has no answer. Does the First Minister?”

Ms Sturgeon responded: “It is exactly because we realise how unsettling, indeed how traumatic this decision has been and will be for residents, their families and employees that the Scottish Government will continue to work to ensure we can do everything we can to guarantee continuity of care for these residents and make sure there is no compromise whatsoever in the quality of their care.”