Carer at the food

Mupette

bertie200 wrote: »

that is just shocking! :eek:


how do some people sleep at night?

well after what i just watched she slept with a full stomach.

Bloody awful, makes you feel sick.

I worry so much about my care needs later in my life (I have MS) that i have made serious thoughts to contacting dignitas when the time comes rather than have someone like that 'suppsed to care for me'

Prinzessilein

I have the world's best carer....my mum! She works all sorts of unsocial hours and doesn't get paid a penny!

I appreciate that most of the paid carers are also dedicated and some of them are absolute angels. But that woman on the video is a compete disgrace! I hope she never finds herself in need of help and gets the sort of assistance she doled out!

hannahO_2

Here is another news about care. But what about those who don't have family that they can rely on?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12269708

heretolearn_2

That is disgraceful. That poor lady.

Bad enough to steal her food but then to sit and scoff it in front of the hungry patient, despicable. Hope it got lots of local publicity and she's famous.

Byatt

Unphu**ing believable. Truly awful and disgusting.

I will have no-one to care for me. (My daughter is autistic and I'm her carer). No other family. Seeing something like this just scares the life out of me.

edited to add: I of course worry myself to death about what will happen to my daughter when I'm gone.

AsknAnswer2

Sadly, carers abusing their position is more common than people realise. I used to work in the community as a Support Worker to people who required care in their own homes, and came across abuse of position often. The most difficult one was one lady whose care I became involved in where it became clear to me she was being abused in a variety of ways and she didn't know it. I had little co-operation from the client who wouldn't hear that her carers would do such a thing, and little support from the other carers so it was difficult to prove. This lady was physically disabled and completely incapable but fine mentally.

It was little things to begin with, like we found she was running out of groceries more often than could be accounted for by usage. I had suspected cash was going missing too. This was difficult though because the lady would not give consent to us keeping logs being kept of what she'd spent, she thought it was too invasive of her privacy. I only discovered it when she asked me to go into her purse to take money out to put in a birthday card that she wanted to send to a relative. There was only a £5 note and some change when there should have been far more. I asked her what she had spent it on, she was sure she hadn't spent it but she then went on to insist that she must have and could not remember. She trusted her carers and would not entertain the thought that any of them might be taking advantage. She began to think she was losing her mind, but I didn't, I thought something was going on. I was in a difficult position because I was a new Support Worker to this woman, having taken over as keyworker from her previous keyworker who was on maternity leave. She knew all of her other carers very well and here was me just in the door and suggesting that someone was taking the mick. I wasn't favourite with the other carers either because they all felt passed over given that they didn't get the offer of Keyworker and had worked with the lady for years, as well as the fact that I introduced record keeping such as daily reports, fluid charts, etc which they had not been doing previously.

I did report my concerns to the organisation I worked for, but without proof and with the client thinking she was losing her mind there wasn't much they could do about it. The clincher was the client's phone bill. From how little the client used the phone the amount charged could not possibly correspond. The client again would not entertain the idea that someone may be taking advantage and blamed it on the phone company getting it wrong. I had a long chat with the client and finally got her to accept that though it wasn't a nice thought, it was possible that someone was taking advantage. I told the client if she requested itemised billing, she could see all the details of her bill, when calls were made, to what number and for how long each call lasted, and either way we would find out whether someone was taking advantage or whether the phone company had got it wrong. The client agreed to request the itemised billing. There was no need for anyone else to know about it because as her keyworker, it was only me who opened the bills and went through them with her. I got what I needed in black and white. The same mobile phone number appeared several times on the bill as did an overseas number. I compared it to the shift rota and these calls were only made during the nights that one particular girl did sleepovers. The girl also happened to have a relative who lived overseas. I took copies of the phone bill and handed them in to the company. The girl was suspended pending an investigation following which she was dismissed. We couldn't prove that the same girl was the one taking money and the client's groceries but after her dismissal nothing more went missing and the client agreed to us keeping finance records from then on.

hannahO_2

Thank you for sharing your story AsknAnswer2.
It's a difficult situation and I can imagine you weren't in a comfortable position to do what you did. After all, who wants to accuse your co-workers, may be higher up e.g. manager don't want a hassel, may be your co-worker is friendly with manager etc and the one who is reporting could earn themselves a bad name even though what the are doing is the correct thing!

Can you imagine, if I were to start up a carer's complaints organisation where people can request an investigation, I would be a very unpopular person (not from the clients relatives but from the company or accused carer).