https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZkifTkJtr8
Áras Attracta Care Centre in Co Mayo, top, and a clip advertising tonight’s Prime Time
An RTÉ Investigations Unit report into the Áras Attracta Care Centre in Co. Mayo will be broadcast on Prime Time on RTÉ One tonight.
During the making of the programme, residents were secretly filmed being force-fed, slapped, kicked, physically restrained and shouted at.
Ahead of tonight’s show, Sheila Ryan – sister of Mary Garvan, who is a resident of the centre – spoke to Sean O’Rourke. Ms Ryan saw the Prime Time footage before speaking to Mr O’Rourke.
Ms Ryan came on the show after National Secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses Association, Noel Giblin – who worked at the centre several years ago – spoke to Mr O’Rourke.
Sheila Ryan: “My sister is 65 years old. She has been in residential care all her life, unfortunately for her, since she was about 7 years of age. In the days when she was born, there were no services for somebody with intellectual disabilities. My sister now is both physically disabled, while she’s in a wheelchair, and she’s mute. So the way she communicates is by her body language. I must say about my sister, she’s very genteel and ladylike and very, very quiet and affectionate. And the nurses and the care staff have all told me that and when they’re getting her in and out of the bath in the morning , to prepare for the day, she actually helps them. She hasn’t got challenging behaviour. [Noel Giblin] He made a statement that all those people in there have extremely challenging behaviour, that is not the case. Not all of them have, some have.”
Sean O’Rourke: “He was critical of the mix, of the different levels of disability, as a result of the cutbacks, that was one of the points he was…”
Ryan: “Yes, I’ll address that in a second but I just want to say that before I address that point. He kind of inferred, from what I gather that, in some way, if you’re dealing with somebody with extreme physical behaviour or challenging behaviour, is it ever justified to find, to physically assault somebody?”
O’Rourke: “I don’t think he was suggesting that. He was quite critical of the behaviour but he was saying, you’ve got to look as well at the way the place is managed, or not managed, as the case may be. But just to come back to your sister, Mary Garvan, you’ve seen some of the footage?”
Ryan: “Yes, I have seen the footage.”
O’Rourke: “What did you see?”
Ryan: “I thought it was extremely disturbing. In one incident, she had a blanket put over her head, when she was crying out for attention for a long period of time. She was crying out for ages, for hours. And all she was asking for, through her making noises and through her body language, was asking to be put over by the window, instead of facing a wall. And either a nurse or care worker came out and placed a blanket over her head. Another time she was looking to be changed out of her chair, you know her wheelchair. And, as you know, you’re sitting there, stagnant, for a very long period of time and she was looking to be changed. She knows when she wants to go to the bathroom or whatever else and she indicated it. And the care people came out and they mishandled and threatened her and they threatened to put her out to the porch. And the porch is where some of the residents smoke and it’s a very cold and dreary place. And you could see her cowering in the chair when all these threats were made. And they manhandled her and manhandled her in and out of the chair and her bones are very fragile. Recently my brother was visiting and he asked could he, himself and his wife visited, asked if they could talk to her by herself. And they said, ‘well you can take her out to the porch’ and he started to wheel her out to the porch and she put her two hands on the door, she wouldn’t move. And we, they couldn’t understand it. And when I saw the video footage it made sense because she was threatened with this punishment of being put out to a cold porch, smokey porch.”
O’Rourke: “How long has she been a resident of Áras Attracta?”
Ryan: “About 20 years.”
O’Rourke: “What was your sense up to this, about the level of care she was getting?”
Ryan: “Well, you see, it’s very hard to know. When you go in there, everybody is on their best behaviour and we, one time, about , about a year and a half ago, before the HIQA report came out, myself and my sister, we visited and we thought she looked malnourished and we queried it with the staff that was there and they said that she’d had a kidney infection and she hadn’t been well. And we accepted that explanation because she was always a very slim girl and we thought, well, yes but we did notice, we took in food and she gobbled it up and we were wondering like, ‘you know, you look as if you’re hungry’. So we inquired about her diet and things like that and they said, ‘oh yeah, she’s eating very well’ and all this kind of stuff. And then, about nine months later, the HIQA report came out and that was the result of a gentleman dying. And we were shocked. And my sister and myself and my brother – because he was here in Ireland, my brother in America – we discussed between ourselves what would we do, what action would we take. Because a lot of violent things came from that HIQA report and we said, well maybe, every organisation from time to time needs a good shake-up and new systems put in place and things looked at, and reforms, and we’ll leave it and maybe they’re doing the best they can in a very challenging environment. And we visited after that and everything seemed to be OK. So, you know, what worries us now is this: this culture existed, a culture of neglect, abuse. And I know it existed because when that HIQA report came out, it didn’t identify, you know, it didn’t point a finger to say this existed because everybody was on the best behaviour because HIQA was there. So this culture was there and when all this broke and RTE showed me the film footage, I rang Mr Kenny who was the administrator there, [and asked] ‘What systems and policies and procedures have you in place to show that staff, in care, are not sexually, physically verbally abused?’ And he didn’t know what I was speaking about. And I said, you know, I was a manager, I said, I had to have systems in place – even for the protection of the staff in the midst of false allegations.”
Listen back in full here
Concerns over Mayo care home raised four years ago (RTE)
HSE should be disbanded. Leo should resign.
the manager of the centre should resign, more ya. it’s not enough to suspend the staff in question – there seems to be a culture of unaccountability all the way to the top.
If a minister resigned every time something went wrong in the health service, we’d have a new one every week.
What ever happened that the big investigation into care homes? Has it all just gone away and everything is back to the way it was like every flipping thing in this country?
I think there was a select committee and then a report published. Is that not enough for you?
A very Ministerial response for you Dylad, I’m shocked.! Of course this “select committee report” is not enough if this story was uncovered as recently as last year! Or are you happy to keep the old head in the sand while bureaucratic negligence of Human Beings still continues?
Shameful that so many people can not be relied upon to do the jobs they are paid to do.
Although not excusing what they did at all or ever, a lot of carers in these places are not well trained and are paid appalling because of this. If you want good care, you need to treat these jobs are important and train people and pay them accordingly
well said, it’s a race to the bottom with low paid workers, hsc managers get paid a small fortune, their heads should roll
Don,
Lack of a decent wage is not due to lack of training.It’s Greedy owners.
Most people do not need to be trained in empathy or sympathy for the vulnerable.
Some people just lack the necessary personal skills, and interest to do a good job.
‘Care’ as administered by people ruled by shareholders is often not compatible with the needs of the elderly (in this case)
Lack of a decent wage is linked with training though. Sometimes these care jobs go to people who should not be in these positions at all but because they are not required to have any qualifications in care they get employed in such facilities. Put someone who has little training in anything at all in a job that actually requires a lot of time and patience which they receive little money for and with a boss who maybe gives you too much work to do and you will have problems.
I have worked as a careworker with the minimum amount of training at manual handling and a small amount of first aid.This may have been reflective in my wage packet but I can assure you it didn’t teflect in my work.Anybody with the merest training and good intentions can be a care worker.
And thats great. But not everyone is you unfortunately.
Not sure what you suggesting but maybe you feel you need a certificate or authorisation from somebody else before you take responsibilty for your own actions.
That’s clearly not what I am saying Kevin
Mr Keegan please
Nah, you’re right
incompetence isn’t the issue buzz, this is outright victimisation of vulnerable people. the perpetrators shouldn’t be just sacked, they should be jailed.
I blame the abusers most-all good solid Catholic country women I’ll wager, pillars of the local community too.
There is a very sick element in this country, typically it’s those who are still Catholics.
It’s a trip to Switzerland for me rather than a home if I ever need one.
Don’t be hasty.
http://Www.Shallowgraves.ie
Give us a call,we’re based in Moate.
same here. shame we have to pay taxes to keep these leeches going.
death by chocolate!
And excellent time pieces!
What’s the training for this job ? Pulling wings off flies ? If staff are on their best behaviour in front of family it’s not like they don’t know this crap is wrong !
As long as we deny our history of institutional abuse we are doomed to repeat it.
They have known about this type of horrific abuse for over 2 years now. Why only now? One cynically would think that the headlines tomorrow will be about this and not the thousands who will descend on the Dail.
Walter-Ego, I do hope you are one of the few who would cynically think like this.
I believe the issue in this case was that HIQA had visited the home and on the surface it seemed all was well and as Sheila Ryan states when HIQA were visiting this home and many others around Ireland it wasn’t until unannounced visits became more frequent that what was really happening became apparent.
The HSE was created by to shield and protect those who are the real problem which is the department of health and those who run it.
Anything can and does happen and it will always be the HSE at fault not the department of health.
Grim viewing for anyone.
There does seem to be a common trend emerging of “There’s nothing we can do, we’re only the Dept. of X”, whether it’s Health or Education.