Before the Prime Time special on Áras Attracta (above).
Last Summer:
THE fallout of the HIQA report [completed during February 2014] into the services at the Áras Attracta residential care centre in Swinford could result in former staff taking claims against the HSE for assaults they received from patients.
….A high number of staff in Áras Attracta were assaulted by patients during the course of their duties and according to Noel Giblin, the national secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA), the lack of staff resulted in patients ‘acting out’ because they were not receiving due care and attention….
There you go now.
Assaulted Áras Attracta staff may sue HSE (Anton McNulty, Mayo News July 24, 2014)
Thanks Mick
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The classic flip in all Irish scandals.
Turn yourself into the victim.
Victims don’t have to be accountable. Plus they can sue everyone.
Even Rehab lady managed it.
Turning oneself in the victim? Is the Iona Institute advising the “nurses” involved? Were these goons actually cognizant of both the inevitable challenges and rewards involved in working as a psychiatric nurse with people with intellectual disabilities, they (and not their charges) would not have acted out. The problem was not with those in care but the acute lack of even the most basic elements of professionalism and respect from the carers.
Rehab lady who said there was any number of jobs she could do for the same money she was getting in Rehab but is now doing SFA, that Rehab lady?
….sorry, I said ‘lady’ … I meant self-serving scumbag.
Ah FFS! That’s a joke. Surely part of your job working in a care home with adults with special needs is to be able to deal with them lashing out?
During the documentary they mentioned that one of the women that was in care was prone to hitting out and that a staff member was out due to being “attacked” by her. But again, is that not part of the job?
All that aside, this shouldn’t distract from the fact that what those women went through was an absolute disgrace, and those involved should be punished for their actions.
if you are caring for a resident who is potentially bigger and stronger that you then you may need more that 1 staff member to restrain them. if the staff member gets injured because there is not enough staff and they have to do it alone then I think the management is responsible.
Staff shortages, which are obviously a legitmate concern for pscychiatric nurses, can neither explain nor forgive what amounts to gross breaches of professionalism and standards of care at Aras Attracta.
i agree, i’m not talking specifically about Aras Attracta. it could be any care home (or any profession really).
I only mean that if anyone gets injured in work because you are expected to do a 2 person job by yourself then you probabhly have a right to sue.
Not wholly true.
You can’t have “professionalism and standards of care” if there is not the staff that is needed to provide “professionalism and standards of care”.
And back to the management….
[ This is in no way a blanket excuse for the treatment meted out and seen in that documentary report ]
Seems more likely the patients hitting were the ones being hit by the staff. If I had someone pushing and kicking me for years I would hit back too
I still haven’t moved off the fact that RTE waited until the night before the Water Monster Protest to broadcast this footage.
Regarding those thugs. They have put their entire profession into disrepute.
I expect the Guards to charge them. The HSE to sue them for dereliction and for the Nurses Unions to shut the ück up and get their own houses in order.
i doubt any of the ‘carers’ portrayed in that video were trained nursing staff frilly.
So where are the nursing staff?
Ignoring these thugs?
No, some were nursing staff. One was a head nurse.
the way care homes are inspected is a joke.
The management know of the inspection date weeks in advance,
they know and are on very good terms with the person that will be inspecting them (its usually the same person each year)
Any carers who don’t have the correct qualifications or are just really bad at their job are rostered off that day.
The inspector “randomly” picks 1 carer to interview about their knowledge of HSE policies, it’s just pure chance that that person is the always most knowledgable carer that works there !
Would it really make any difference if the inspectors arrived without notice? I imagine they wouldn’t assault patients in front of inspectors…..hence the need for under cover…..can’t see any other way that inspections would be of any value in relation to abuse/assaults.
It would be a improvement. at least some homes won’t have time to move residents that are having trouble with to a hospital for “tests” while the inpection is going on.
I think your talking through your hat. What these people were doing was bad human behaviour. There is no process or legislation that can stop that. Your either a decent human being or your an a****le. Its the husbands/wives, brothers/sisters need to shake these people up and ask “what the fupp were you doing?”
The behaviour of the staff reminded me of the kind of pack mentality at play in Abu Ghraib.
Also there is a culture of getting rid of health carers who report policy breaches to much.
if you have 2 carers, 1 senior working there 10 years and one new employee, just finished their FETAC 5 course and head full correct HSE policies and procedures.
If the new employee starts making complaints about the senior one consistantly not following the policies then they will be gone pretty quick.
You can hear in the documentary the carers complaining about a previous colleague who used to report them. and in the end that person making the complaints was fired.
That last paragraph is a very important point that some people seem to be missing. These “carers” knew only too well that what they were doing was wrong. It’s not a lack of training, a lack of staff, a lack of facilities, that made them act the way they did, it was just a pure lack of empathy, compassion, and common decency.
yeah i agree, the place could have had inspections every week and it still wouldn’t have caught the behaviour of these carers. In the video they are sitting around reading the newspaper and out of boredom seem to be just tormenting the residents. they’re hardly overworked or understaffed.
My Dad worked in a care home and witnessed some horrible abuse. I never fully believed him until I saw Primetime on Tuesday. He tried to report it several times and was always met with denial and threats. Most people in the home knew about the abuse and just let it happen.
He ended up having to transfer to a different home due to the way he was treated following his attempts to report the abuse. He eventually returned to work in the home he started off in. A new member of staff informed him he had been warned to “watch out for that fella, he’ll report you if you do anything out of line”.
So rather than create a safe environment for staff and cliental they were singling out the ones who may rat them out.
Judging by the behavior of some of these so called carers, I’m not remotely surprised they think theyre the victims in all this. Pathetic, evil cretins who physically and verbally assault disabled people on a daily basis… oh they hit you back? Better sue the HSE!
Iv stated here loads of times where i work, so some will know where im talking about, but our facility has hiqa inspections. And i can tell you 100% fact we’re told days before they come in. Its a joke. All inspections should be kept secret and random. HIQA is a complete waste of money.
+1000
There is something familiar about these care-workers….I’m trying to put my finger on it; The certain Irish person that gets a bit of power and authority and goes into overdrive to dish it out…they love using their giving-out voice and throwing a few slaps ….or the wannabe parent that just treats everyone like their bold kids. The Convent Schools, Christian Brothers, Laundries, Institutions were full of these types. Woe betide if you were under their ‘care’. Shame on them. Prosecute.
And the Guards. And the schools.
the words of big Charlie McCreevy come to mind- we all partied.
But seriously, they should sue. But, they should also be brought before a medical board (to the extent they are nurses/professionals) and be disbarred (if that’s the correct term). Then they should be brought before the courts for assault. But yes, they’re right, the HSE should be sued for this. They are responsible.