Colleague sacked for abuse, shocked

[Cheesestring11]

She was caught on camera verbally abusing an elderly man with dementia, and sacked with immediate effect.

I'm shocked, I got on well with her, she wasn't perfect but I thought she had a good heart generally.

Haven't spoken to her in over a week, but I believe the event happened this week.

Not sure what to do really, just shocked that she could have done it, everyone makes mistakes but that was just nasty. Would you cut contact with her?

Obvious cut contact get a moral compass

I have visited residential homes and patients homes where they have refused a proper wash for a over week, a lot of people feel uncomfortable getting undressed in front of strangers and people with dementia are no different. It can take time to build a rapport with someone so they trust you enough to provide intimate care. If someone refuses, you walk away and try again later, pointless to escalate the situation or get angry with them.
I know of a few families who have cameras in their elderly vulnerable relatives homes, both to monitor them and also the behaviour of visiting care staff.

People refusing to wash and dress is a big part of working in nursing homes. You learn to deal with it without being verbally abusive even when you are in a tight schedule

[quote EmpressCixi]@Itsalmostanaccessory

I’m not condoning verbal abuse of the elderly at all. I’m just saying get the facts. If the OPs friend who has been a lovely person for years has suddenly told an OAP to get his fucking hands off her...and sacked for it because he’s gone....ooooh I have dementia...then my sympathy is with her. They’re not all harmless. My best friends daughter who works in a care home was beaten in the face by a woman with dementia just last month, ended up with split lip and a black eye. I’d personally be more understanding of a knew jerk VERBAL reaction to physical or sexual assault than your “no excuse” idiocy, clearly you’ve never run afoul of a dementia sufferer when they are violent or predatory.[/quote]
Your right lots of Dementia patients are not harmless I worked on both the acute mental health,wards and Dementia wards as a nurse ,there was was far more violence and agression on the elderly wards ,but that can be part of dementia aa can sexual disinhibition,it's extremely hard work and not everyone is cur out for it but under no circumstances should a staff member be verbally or physically abusive

A lot of people who have an opion on this have probably never had to deal with it

I have had to deal with this and I know exactly how challenging people with dementia can be. I have often walked away, or left the room but I would never have verbally abused the individual concerned. And I am not a career care worker with training.

Young babies and children can also be very challenging. But nobody would ever make excuses for parents or kindergarten staff verbally abusing them. Why the double standard with the elderly?

No way would I stay in contact with her

Out of lots of things in the world. That’s up there on stuff I could never ever forgive. Never

I wouldn’t ever contact her again. disgusting behaviour.

It can be difficult when we find out friends are not who we thought they were. I understand your confusion, I imagine it’s hard to correlate the story with the colleague you know.

Unfortunately many people only display their true identities to vulnerable or weaker people who cannot protect themselves.

As much as you want to reach out, I wouldn’t. A sharp, clean break is best. I imagine she may have been told by management she isn’t allowed to contact anyone.

Try to move on, unfortunately these things happen and you’ve just got to keep your head down and hope their replacement is much nicer.

It is a real shock when we learn something like this, because we hope we would just 'know' if someone was like this, but the truth is sometimes we don't. Is good this was found out though.

Have a for the shock and be glad you won;t have to work with this person again.

@ritamiller yes and the difference is carers get to leave after half an hour.

People with dementia can be difficult, aggressive and annoying. So can those with mental health issues. So can those with learning difficulties. So can small children.

It's not ok to abuse them.

Maintaining contact to get her side of the story is mad. She was fired for gross misconduct because she abused a service user. It is not your place to establish the facts and go meddling. That extends to gossiping about it amongst colleagues as well. It would be unprofessional to reach out to her to hear her out, from the company's perspective you would be contacting a known abuser whose victim you care for, so you could get yourself dragged into this mess and affect your own career by doing so.

There was CCTV of the incident. Therefore there should be solid evidence of what has happened and it cannot be misconstrued. If still, it's all a big fix and she was perfectly justified in her actions, then she is within her rights to appeal and I'm sure if she wants to clear her name she will do so. Even then, if she finds the process has not been fair, she can take this to tribunal. And with CCTV evidence of it all, this would truly clear her name if she was wrongly fired.

Even if you speak to her, and she gives you a good story. What can you do with that exactly? Lots of abusers will twist it around to make the victim look responsible. So you won't even know if it's true or not. Pointless exercise and too much risk.

Also, in my experience of care, if you're a bit snippy on a one off because you've been pushed to the limits, this would not lead to gross misconduct. Perhaps you would get a warning, some extra training, but I very much doubt you would be fired for it. We are human after all and sometimes mistakes do happen. But abuse is not a mistake. As a care worker, I have never been abusive verbal or otherwise because I've had a hard day, and trust me I've had plenty of hard days! And as hard as it is, you do get to go home at the end of it, even if you're doing back to back sleep-ins. So it isn't really comparable to people who have to deal with it relentlessly in their own home with their relatives.

Furthermore, I'd be disgusted if someone reached out to a member of staff who sexually abused someone in their care to hear their side of the story. So let's not do that in other cases of abuse whether there is a chance of them being untrue or not.

I am not saying you will do any of this OP, but I am shocked at people suggesting to find out the other side of the story.

yes and the difference is carers get to leave after half an hour

They are there for 12 hour shifts and go from 1 bad patient to the next, where are you getting the 30 minutes from?

All you need to do is stop talking to her. How do you know this ?

I hope fervently I never end up in an elderly care unit after my Mum was admitted to our local specialist unit.
She was left naked and uncovered, dangling in the air on a bath hoist that had broken while the nurse spent several minutes trying to find 'someone from maintenance'.(He was brought in without Mum being warned.) She'd complained to me they'd leave her naked and waiting, but staff denied it. I was there and witnessed it happening. Would they have left her totally alone if I hadn't been there? Actually, I did leave her briefly to fetch a large towel to wrap around her.
In another incident she complained that one of the male residents kept coming in, stroking her body and feeling her breasts. She didn't want me to raise it as "He thinks I'm his wife." When I asked the staff, they actually laughed and responded with, "Ah, he gets confused!" The women's rooms were totally separated from the men and the nurses station was part of the boundary. It was only when I mentioned the words "Sexual assault" that they took it seriously.
There were other incidents, but I use these as an example of the somewhat lazy and uncaring attitude of some staff. It was as if a nonchalant and "Can't be arsed" attitude that was always apparent. Not all NHS are saints despite the rainbows in our windows.
That said, there are some really patient and kind Health workers too.

• Before anyone asks why we didn't have Mum with us, I was having cancer treatment throughout that horrible year and I was quite poorly. Also, we'd never told Mum of my diagnosis as it would have distressed he unnecessarily

Demented and vulnerable doesn’t mean harmless: rather the opposite.

Nice and polite and reasonable tend to be off the menu too.

Get the facts and her side of the story.

Hmm. If this is your colleague, OP, you should have a good working knowledge of the circumstances of this care home. Are staff generally treated with respect by management? Did this colleague have any beef with management (or anyone else)? Is the resident she 'abused' particularly difficult to manage? Are there fair and robust HR policies about dealing with incidents?
Going by your knowledge of this particular care home and this particular colleague, which scenario do you think is most likely -
Your colleague is impatient and sometimes bullying with the residents and probably deserved to be dismissed...
The resident this altercation involved is a nasty bit of work (who may of course not be responsible for their behaviour) who sometimes grabs, bites or scratches staff, or is verbally abusive...
Managment want rid of your colleague because she speaks out when they cut corners or make unreasonable demands...

From the perspective of an outsider, any of these are possible, so it's silly for other MNers to start bawling for this woman to be burned at the stake when none of the rest of us know what happened - but OP has at least enough familiarity with all concerned to make informed assumptions.

@Supersimkin2

Demented and vulnerable doesn’t mean harmless: rather the opposite.

Nice and polite and reasonable tend to be off the menu too.

Get the facts and her side of the story.

I'm not sure how this is relevant? Yes dementia patients can be very aggressive ,it can be part and parcel of their condition,it doesn't mean they deserve to be abused I have a child with severe autism and learning disabilities he can also be agressive and extremely challenging at times ,I can only hope nobody is aggressive towards him i

In an ideal world everyone who works with people with dementia would have proper training about the brain and how dementia can affect the different parts of the brain. The amount of times you hear from workers that someone who is aggressive or disinhibited must have been like that when younger but just hit it well, but have no understanding of the frontal lobe and what happens when it's damaged.

Unfortunately it's not an ideal world, it's a world where carers are massively underpaid and turnover is high so organisations don't invest money in quality training.

@ritamiller my father's carers leave after half an hour, my mother doesnt. Even if you work in a care home you get to go home at the end of your shift. For family that's not always an option.

*hid it well

Thank goodness she was caught and dealt with appropriately. My mother had dementia and I couldn’t imagine her being treated like that.

@Wreath21 no one is bawling for this women to be burnt at the stake. Quite a few abuse apologists about though.

I work on a dementia unit in a care home - it is one of the hardest job to do and the residents can push you to the limits time and time again, and even the most patient of people can snap. I have been verbally and physically abused by residents, spat on, slapped and p*ssed on, and work with several carers that have been hospitalised by residents, all for little training and minimum wage. That coupled with the hours that you can end up doing, it is exhausting mentally and physically - anyone who has not worked in this environment can have no real understanding of the demands of an average shift on a dementia unit.

I personally would not judge without all the facts, espescially if this was a one off incident......

Ensure you have your facts right. But if they are, then I’d shun without compunction. Abusers are rarely horrible all the time. They’d never be in a position to abuse others if they were.

what an awful thing to happen, shocking, so glad she has been sacked with immediate effect.
there should be zero tolerance to abuse

No, I think you should remain in contact with your colleagues and support her throughout this clearly traumatic time of her life, of abusing vulnerable adults who are unable to speak for themselves!!!