Panorama - Learning Disability Hospital abuse

[BakeliteBelle]

I know it is on AIBU, but why no debate on here? Did anyone watch it?

I forced myself to watch it because one of the factors in abuse of people with learning disabilities is the fact that good people who care, stand by and do nothing because they can't bear to believe it is possible.

I cried watching it and feel so utterly distressed that as my DS reaches 18, I won't be able to care for him at home because he is too challenging, but I can't bear the thought of what might happen to him away from us...

Too, too distressing. I want those bastards to be done for torture and find out what it is to be hurt and bullied and stamped on themselves.

What the fuck are LA's funding learning disability hospitals for anyway? They were meant to have closed years ago - why on earth are private companies receiving funding to open new hospitals? It beggars belief.

I won't sleep tonight

[coff33pot]

I have just watched it. I hope those evil bs rot in hell if there is one. I dont have a constructive comment that I can make right now I am afraid because I am too upset to make one.

[Ben10isthespawnofthedevil]

I was in tears the whole way through :(

I wonder whether there was no mention on MNSN as it was far far too close to home for many of the posters. This must force a complete review of the checks and monitoring of these "hospitals".

There have been arrests already. I hope that they get what they deserve in prison.

[hazeyjane]

I'm afraid I couldn't watch it, I'm sorry.

I've just watched the news report on it, and ended up in tears.

Ds is only 11 months old, we are just at the beginning of trying to find out why he has developmental delays. Fear over what his future holds is just one of the things that is causing me huge anxiety.

I can't imagine the pain the families involved must be in.

[amberlight]

Watched parts of it. In tears. Well, that's the reality of what people like me are sometimes treated like in society and in 'care homes'. It's why I keep going with awareness-raising and prayer and information and everything else - in the hope we might stop the next situation from happening. Those poor parents who had to sit there and watch what the staff were doing to hurt their daughter, in such shock and bewilderment and sobbing...

[TheNinjaGooseIsOnAMission]

I couldn't watch either, same as I couldn't watch the debate about abortion and disability at the weekend.

[cansu]

Didn't watch but heard news report this am. It makes me so worried for ds future. I am sure it looked great from the outside. It is heartbreaking.

[Triggles]

Didn't know about the programme, but not sure I could bear to watch it either.

[bochead]

Thank heavens people ARE still shocked by stuff like this.!!!!! Shining a light on instances such as in the programme are the only way to stamp stuff like this out for good. Sadly we all know there will be other institutions and the like where this will continue, whistleblowers often lose their own jobs/reputations without media protection and this needs to change.

I worry sometimes that society is becoming too selfish to care especially with all the derogatory newspaper headlnes conserning the disabled recently. I was disgusted the the CQC seemed more interested in covering their own backs than rooting out the problems iykwim.

[Bloodybridget]

I was surprised just now to see there wasn't a thread on In the News. Hideous stuff, but as people with disabilities, especially learning disabilities, have such very low status in our society, the people paid to look after them are usually badly paid, undertrained and insufficiently monitored. If they do a good job it's because they are humane people who see the person they are caring for, not just the challenging behaviour.

[signandsmile]

I knew it was on, and am following reports about it, but couldn't bear to watch... the thought of ds, or some of his friends (who have more severe needs than he does) in that situtation, brings me to tears.

I'm sorry I don't have anything more coherent to say.

[BakeliteBelle]

The guy from the Quality Care Commission could not have appeared more ineffective if he had tried. Frightening

[amberlight]

The contrast between what they're doing in places like that (and the challenging behaviour that results from it)....and work like that done by Phoebe Caldwell (Intensive Interaction) where she's only twice in her whole lifetime encountered difficult behaviour from individuals - because she has learned how to read our body language and how to respond to it with gentleness and respect instead of hate, mocking, anger, sarcasm, violence or cruelty.

Why aren't we spending even a fraction of that money on training those ruddy staff??

[DillyDaydreaming]

Amazing isn't it? Horrific abuse captured on film and just 14 (???) posts on MN in response [despair emoticon]

[DillyDaydreaming]

Okay I take that last post back (a bit), there IS another thread with around 60 posts.

[amberlight]

Dilly, partly maybe it's a 'it'll never happen to me or anyone I know' way of thinking that most people's brains seem to have. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. We honestly tend to think that abusive behaviour towards vulnerable people happens abroad or during wars a long time ago. The thought that our own society is not a lot different to dictator states isn't something our brains want to handle, so it's always ok for a lot of people to ignore this stuff/say that disabled people are cheats/liars/scroungers/violent/abusive/vanishingly rare/always cared for properly anyway/ anything that works to make us the baddies or irrelevant so people don't have to care and can get on choosing their proverbial Jimmy Choo shoes and their Prada handbags and their exotic holidays, unaware of what families with children or adults with SEN go through to survive.

Society stands and falls on how it treats its vulnerable. We're fairly appalling at it at the moment, and it's so good to see programmes like this making an impact.

[direlahere]

I've watched it this morning having recorded it. I was shocked and very upset by what I saw but as an ex disability nurse having worked in a private semi secure unit I have too seen and reported things that have occurred and I have felt to be very wrong. I retrained as a result and ceased nursing.

I was trained when hospitals were being closed down for absolutely the right reasons but for incredibly vulnerable young people, secure private hospitals are still being utilised and the one I worked at is expanding at the rate of knots buying up a huge number of LA sites and establishing services that it then sells to the LA. I can only see this organisation getting bigger and more and more powerful and the close links to the LA mean, in my view, that any challenges to practice will be really hard to proove. I don't know what happenned to the whistleblower in this documentary but I know what can happen to people who challenge practice from personal experience and I believe this is the reason why more people don't come forward to expose what is happenning.

[Ben10isthespawnofthedevil]

Here's a link for National Autistic Society's petition to make sure that the Government takes urgent action to prevent this happening again. This is from the Every Disabled Child Matters FB page.

Please click on this link to help prevent the fight against abuse of vulnerable adults

I've shared this via FB to all of my friends......

[hazeyjane]

Signed, and forwarded.

[direlahere]

I've signed it but do wonder about vulnerable children and young people also

[smugtandemfeeder]

Thanks Ben10 will share it on my facebook too.

Watched the programme on iplayer this morning with DH. This place is literally 5 minutes from my house and I never even knew it was there. So shocked. Why do they put these places on industrial estates in the middle of nowhere. Are they really so taboo and embarrassing?

Outraged about the treatment of the people there. I just cant believe things like that happen in our society nowadays but it was clearly widespread in that place. So awful for all the people involved and terrifying for anyone with a child who has special needs.

[Ben10isthespawnofthedevil]

direlahere I did wonder too..... esp as it was on the EDCM FB feed.

[Ben10isthespawnofthedevil]

My team at work volunteer at a respite home for children with ASD. It is fantastic and I am so pleased to know that the treatment of the children get it top class and nothing like this. However long term homes are going to be different than respite I know.

The worst bit was when Simone called for her mum when she was in the shower :(

[StickyFloor]

Smug, to answer your question : our local paper recently ran a campaign by some residents outraged that a house on the edge of a housing estate was to be converted to house some young adults with additional needs. There was uproar about how this would negatively affect the local area and a campaign to stop it happening. Then much rejoicing when the LA backed down and agreed to build somewhere else, and the paper patting itself on the back for supporting this worthy local campaign.

How can this happen in this day and age that the local community gets together to stop this and keep a group of people with SN, you know, away from normal people. Makes me sick.

Then again I have experience of prejudices against physical and learning disabilities virtually daily so even this prog didn't surprise me, just made me very sick and worried for my dd's future.