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?

@UnshakenNeedsStirring , @Kikibabes
If they were your loved one and you had taken care of them, first they might not be in a care home, and if you'd given up and put them in care, you might be more understanding.
Even if it were my mother or father, I hope I'd have much more sympathy and understanding for the sacked person than most MNers have shown. I can't believe the extremely critical comments come from people who have any experience of this situation.

@ritamiller

I'm going to go against the grain here and say get the facts 1st. Whilst I am not condoning abuse for a second I am saying we all have our limits and can snap sometimes.

What was said in the verbal abuse? There is a difference if for example she was doing it all the time to it being a 1 off and just having a very bad day and saying 'ffs put the shoes on', again that's not ok but we are all human and capable of cracking sometimes.

If it was the latter I wouldn't class her as a monster or necessarily cut contacts because she fucked up. But in a professional environment you can and will be fired for this often so you just have to not snap even in the most challenging times.

BTW I nursed my own father through dementia so know exactly how challenging and exhausting it can be,

Nursing your own father is VERY different to choosing to work and BE PAID for looking after someone else’s father. I cared for my grandfather and also cared for my own child who had significant caring needs - no way would I be interested in anyone else’s excuses for providing less than the care anyone deserves.

Was she a friend before a colleague? Do you know what she said that got her fired?

If she’s just a colleague, obviously bin her off. Friends are friends, work colleagues are just people we are forced into a room with. I wouldn’t bother with her unless she was a good friend before the incident and if that was the case I’d try to find out what happened. If just a colleague, forget her and move on. Not your concern.

I'd want to hear what she did first.

[quote Merlin3189]**@UnshakenNeedsStirring* , @Kikibabes*
If they were your loved one and you had taken care of them, first they might not be in a care home, and if you'd given up and put them in care, you might be more understanding.
Even if it were my mother or father, I hope I'd have much more sympathy and understanding for the sacked person than most MNers have shown. I can't believe the extremely critical comments come from people who have any experience of this situation.[/quote]
I actually used to work in a care home- it wasn't necessarily a dementia specific place but there was plenty of residents with the diagnosis- I simply think that caring for someone is a calling & it's not something everyone can do 🤷🏻‍♀️- it's always been my mantra to treat others as u would like to be treated and when I was working in the care setting I ALWAYS treated the residents like they were my grandparents because I would hate to think my grandparents would have been treated any different had they been in a home- thankfully neither grandparent maternal or paternal has to go into one but unfortunately i no longer have them here- so yes I absolutely do have caring experience and I stand by my comment 🤷🏻‍♀️

We have a family member in a care home and have 3 ongoing incidents of abuse against them- one serious enough to get the police involved, it's appalling and I agree that it needs to be seen as a proper profession and not just something anyone can do.

[quote Merlin3189]**@UnshakenNeedsStirring* , @Kikibabes*
If they were your loved one and you had taken care of them, first they might not be in a care home, and if you'd given up and put them in care, you might be more understanding.
Even if it were my mother or father, I hope I'd have much more sympathy and understanding for the sacked person than most MNers have shown. I can't believe the extremely critical comments come from people who have any experience of this situation.[/quote]
And whos going to pay my mortgage while I care for my loved one at home! You think caring for someone is easy?

[quote AutomaticMoon]@SweetFelicityArkright

www.homecareinsight.co.uk/care-worker-pay-drops-below-that-of-cleaners-skills-for-care-report-finds/[/quote]
You're absolutely right: people will bellow and stamp and virtue-signal about how awful it is that people in care homes are often mistreated - but you hear a lot less about how awful it is that people with no aptitude for the work are being pressured to take it up.
There is this mindset that the shortage of care workers should be fixed by forcing the 'benefit scroungers' and the idle, frivolous, selfish poor, to take on the jobs... rather than pay staff properly and treat them with respect. Which is not really very good for the patients.

Of course the other way the Tories are likely to try solving the care home staffing crisis will be a brand new moral panic about how awful it is that 'people' (and let's be clear about this, they mean 'women') don't provide care for the sick and elderly at home these days because they are too 'selfish'.

If a camera was set up to catch her or any other colleagues abusing vulnerable residents then there must have been a reason for the family or home to do this - and your colleague got caught. As someone whose nonverbal vulnerable DF was in a home and attacked by another patient I'd bin your pal! No bloody excuse for it, no matter how frustrated she got!

@Chocolateis1ofyour5aday

If a camera was set up to catch her or any other colleagues abusing vulnerable residents then there must have been a reason for the family or home to do this - and your colleague got caught. As someone whose nonverbal vulnerable DF was in a home and attacked by another patient I'd bin your pal! No bloody excuse for it, no matter how frustrated she got!

Most homes now have CCTV in public places. They help a lot when incidents happen like someone falling when no one has witnessed it to determine mechanism of the fall, if they hit their head etc. They also assist when the condition of a resident is changing or deteriorating, because it's there, on camera to be seen, and there can't then be the usual 'oh the staff can't be bothered to deal with them so they're whining about it'. It also shows where all staff are at any given time.

As for covert camera's in rooms, I've encountered a few, and yes, they're useful for picking up on situations like this where it may not be apparent and having something done about it. They're also good at developing an overall picture of someone, because care staff cannot be with each resident 24/7 and I have known one be used to affect a move of a resident that was in the wrong setting, but the social worker was dragging their feet with arranging a new, more suitable placement, which affected not only the resident involved, but others too.
There's so much more to bad care than bad care assistants, but as others have pointed out, pushing people into this line of work and treating those who choose it badly isn't going to resolve that situation, it makes it worse.