No doubt you have all heard the hype that has been in the paper the last few weeks about our aged care facilities in Sydney (which I leave unnamed).
The allegations from this woman’s diary are serious and make it clear that we in aged 
care do nothing but neglect our residents. When reading the article I couldn’t help but feel enraged at this woman.
How dare she? For her 15 minutes of fame she has not only hurt the facility that she has been volunteering at but ruined a whole industry that is struggling already.
Many of the things that I read seemed to be a little far-fetched and I know are not the truth (as I know one of the facilities she was volunteering at).
Her allegations that she was told to keep things from the family and told that if a family asks about something to simply say “that is confidential” could not be further from the truth.
By law NOK/Guardians and any power of attorney have the right to see and get information from the facility in regards to their relative or client. Anyone who is not legally looking after the person of course can’t. But this goes for anywhere doesn’t it?
When I ring the hospital after sending a resident for acute care, 9 times out of 10, I am told that information is not allowed to be given to me in regards to the health status of my resident even though I am ringing on behalf of the nursing home and we are the primary carers of the person (not to mention that I am the care manager of the facility).
She complains that she was feeding and transferring residents without qualifications. Well I find this also hard to believe.
In aged care we are very much governed by legislation and I know that one of the facilities that she was volunteering in she was specifically told NOT to do any tasks that are specialised such as feeding and transferring, yet she was caught doing them and asked to please refrain from doing so as it is a danger to the residents.
This person entered these aged care facilities with the intention to catch them out — not to help. If she was hearing people calling out into the corridor and the staff were engaged with helping other residents why did she not simply get them that blanket? Or give them their bedside phone to make the phone call etc?
When you enter a nursing home you will hear residents calling out into the corridor, particularly if they have dementia and don’t know how to use the call bell or they have no concept of time and they may have only just rang the call bell and what feels an hour to them may only be a few moments thus complaining that the buzzer is not answered for hours and they never get what they need. But the reality is the nurses were busy taking someone to the toilet and as soon as they are done they will attend to that resident’s needs.
What is the most upsetting about this whole thing is that this lady is not a professional.
She has no idea about aged care she is purely making assumptions on the small snippet she has witnessed. Food does get cold, when you are serving more than 10 people at the same time and you have to feed the majority, unless you have a staff patient ratio of 1:2 – this can’t be helped.
It is against food and safety regulations to re-heat food in aged care facilities. So what would she like the catering department to do? Serve food resident by resident?
She passes comment on what the staff say during their “smoke break.” Well I don’t know where to begin to state how wrong this is.
Staff’s mealtime and break times are there for staff to de-brief, state whatever it is they feel like whether it be right or wrong, whether is be PC or not. If they said what she states they said (which is hear say in any case) is it not a person’s rights to do or say as they wish on their break away from their residents?
Nurses swap patients all the time, and say things about their patients particularly if they are difficult ones. That is how we let off steam and that is how we get emotional support from our colleagues.
I could go on and on rebutting everything this woman disclosed but I guess it would be useless the damage that this woman has done to our industry is too great.
Spot checks are taking place all through the aged care industry, unannounced visits have already started and will continue now for the rest of the year I suspect. You know what I say to that…… BRING IT ON!!!
The place she complained about had a 3 day accreditation and investigation and they found nothing.
Are you telling me that all the residents lied? If people understood the whole investigative processes of the department they would understand that not only are staff interviewed, but residents, relatives, visitors are all interviewed in fact who ever walks through the front door is interviewed.
Documentation is checked and so is achieved documentation. It is quite hard to pull the wool over the department’s eyes.
The department is trained to spot BS a mile away, and when an unsubstantiated complaint is made. I have done the assessors course so I am well aware of the processes. Whilst once upon a time neglect ran rampant throughout the aged care industry, now it is not the case we are a very heavily regulated industry and welcome these regulations to ensure our elderly get the very best they deserve.
Even if someone was to be nursed 1 on 1 they still might end up in a wet pad or calling out at any one time, this is human nature and life. The question that should be asked is…. Is this happening all the time? Does this person have deteriorated skin, or shows signs of neglect?
It has taken decades to try to get rid of the stigma of aged care and get the wider community to understand that aged care these days is not the end of the road full of neglect, but a place where the elderly can get their life back and enjoy the time they have left.
With one sharp swift of the pen this woman has taken us back to square one. She has stopped aged care facilities in trusting volunteers and thus as a result many will close their doors on volunteers from now on and who gets hurt in the end?
The elderly who so love having volunteers come in to be with them. I hope this woman is happy that she has caused more harm than good. All for the price of 15 minutes of fame.
What do you think about this whole saga? How did you feel when you read what she wrote? Did you believe this to be true or did you feel enraged at her story?
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Tags: aged care abuse, aged care nursing, nursing issues australia
Fully agree with the comments above. The person complaining is a negligent fool. They should have answered the problems by direct involvement, not deliberately go about listing items for her article. I can walk through any hospital and list the spillages near water/ice machines or in tea-making areas (wen I should be making the area safe and alerting the staff). There are too many more important items to address for many nursing home (or even hospital) nurses, without using the ‘fine tooth comb’ approach.
This person should be listed as a ‘do not employ’ person, as they are the same persons who will on their next visit spill a cup of water on the floor, then wait till a staff member approaches and quickly ’slip’ (accidentally of course) and make either a workers compensation claim, or an injury claim.
Take her out back and beat her to a pulp! Total nuisance!
But, many nursing homes and also hospitals DO have people who are responsible for the problems mentioned…..Taking too long to get to feeding the patients ( and if this occurs, why doesn’t the facility hire extra staff for meal times?).
Hiding information is common eveywhere, but for a reason. At the hospital I work, we have had the critically injured patient’s priest come in to intensive care to see the patient. We get suspicious when a family that is very abusive, antisocial, aggresive etc, gets a ‘priest’ – and blocked him. He ended up being a newspaper reporter. Often we have ‘calls’ from a brother ( who is most likely really another reporter! Or the relative who came to the bedside, asked the nurses a few questions, and not only did the full conversation, but also a video of the conversation and the surrounding patients (showing faces) get on that night’s channel 9 news.
You can’t trust anyone today, and relatives have to accept that. Only the immediate relative should be given news, and everyone else gets told to speak to that relative. In a 10 hour shift we would be spending 8 hours answering the same questions to a bunch of idiots who are all standing in the same room, taking turns to ring us. They are just trying to kill the patient, as if we answered the calls, the patient would die!
As for a stigma, don’t worry about it. This woman will get older, and then will get the care she loves from the aged care facility she goes to! She’ll get what she deserves.
Get on with your life and care, give the best and it reflects back from the families.
I’m an RN ( male ) in charge of night shift at a 100 – 150 bed facility.
I’ve never encountered anything that could be considered as ‘ abuse ‘ by the care staff. These people ( mostly women ) have an empathy for the residents, that I think is far greater, that attributed to nurses working with patients in a Public Hospital. Their combined knowledge of the residents is also an asset to myself, in order to make the best decisions on night shift.
I agree with the CM above, who states that sometimes food may be a little cold at times, but so is the Public Hospital’s ( and the Private’s for that matter ).
Our catering section tries to take into account, if a resident is likely to take some time to eat. No point in supplying food that will deteriorate quickly.
In general, a facility should fully identify any volunteer that is either ‘ sent ‘ or personally volunteers at an Aged Care Facility. Too many opportunities for the alternate agenda.
Keep up the good work, all working in Aged Care.
regards,
After reading this I had to go back to the original article in the daily Telegraph. Knowing the fantastic work most aged care facility staff do much of it in their own time I would take great umbridge if it attacked them as said above. Reading the original article clearly it does not make these allegations in the manner that is given on this site. The original article is quite sensitive although misguided and ill informed. The follow up articles are clearly quite sensational and reasonable to complain about.
I have an issue with reporters acting as volunteers by their nature of their role they are breaching the person rights to privacy. I do not think I would allow a reporter in to my home for a night to detail everything that happens in my home let alone over 3 months. The reported conversations of nurses is as said quite out of context and I think nurses need to make a point of complaining about this to the original reporter and newspaper. We also need to complain to those who followed up the story.
I fail to see any problems with volunteers feeding residents and wonder why it is against policy unless the person has dysphagia or something that specifically impairs their swallow. I volunteered at a Nursing Home at school from the age of 13-16 year old and fed Nursing Home patients it certainly did not harm anybody. i have also trained family members to feed families of people with dysphagia in hospital. I am yet to see any evidence that it does the person harm but there is evidence to show that it does ad value and meaning to their existence.
Keep the passion.
As stated the reporting is a bit fantastic and to think yellow toe nails in an elderly dying patient is an issue is all a bit silly and some other comments are clearly ill informed.
However overall the original story does not accuse nurse of providing poor care apart from on nurse. She may not even be a nurse and a domestic staff.
While I fully agree with what has been said here, I have to say that there are some not so good staff out there. Just yesterday I was reading in the Nurses & Midwives Board mag about an aged care nurse who’s behaviour and actions not only led to the said nurse facing criminal charges for assult but being removed from the registrar.In saying that there are quite frankly crap nurses everywhere and the public flogging given to aged care in the media is very sad. I bet their are patients in homes everywhere who’s careers are now going to have to earn the trust and repect of the residents families all over again.
I think the NSWNA’s campaign for ” Because We Care ” ( in Aged Care ) will go a long way with winning the support of not only the families of residents, but the politicians ( well, some of them at least !! ), as well as the general Public.
I was very impressed with the NSWNA recently, whilst attending the Annular Conference as my workplace Delegate.
I was never really much of a ‘ union man ‘ until recently, when I took up the role of local Branch Secretary & Delegate to the Council ( which meant, I attended the Conference on behalf on my Members at work ).
The NSWNA are really putting a lot of energy into the Because We Care campaign, and I think the entire Aged Care sector will benefit from the actions the Association is taking.
The NSWNA is also a Member organisation of Unions NSW, and I welcome the support given to not only the Aged Care Sector, but towards all Nurses, in all workplaces.
I’ll be there this afternoon, at Warilla Bowls Club for the 17:30hrs. meeting, wearing my NSWNA rugby jumper I picked from the Conference !!
regards,