What would you do?*work*

[stephie182]

Hi all
I work in a care home and a new resident with dementia has a golliw*g doll that they have on their bed every night.
we are a diverse workplace with many people from diverse ethical backgrounds.
a complaint has been made and this has been dismissed and that it’s not an issue.
Am I being unreasonable to think that this is actually an issue?
thanks

I would be interested to hear from anyone who is in management in a nursing home. This sort of thing must happen quite a lot.

Does anyone with a job going into people's homes remember the H&S training? Basically if the workplace is someones home it doesn't have to be H&S compliant. So they can have riskily positioned ladders at Buckingham Palace and people can smoke in care homes. I suspect this falls under the same exemptions. You couldn't have this doll in the office but you can in the resident's living quarters.

Are randy blokes with dementia allowed naked pin ups on their walls

An elderly person with dementia with a comfort toy surely has to have some extra consideration? Given to them a long time ago, in a different era, not intentionally offensive, just let her be. Look away, cover over, accept and ignore, get on on with the job.

Indeed!

There is CQC guidance around pornographic material and broadly I think that it says it should be handled discreetly - but older people having sexual material and sexual relationships is an area to navigate in care homes.

I think maybe it's only on Mumsnet where hordes of beloved gollywogs are kept and cherished and are absolutely never ever racist

Only if they're racist stereotyped naked pin ups 🤭

That lady or man is your client. It's not up to you to tell them what possessions they can keep.

What an absolutely disgusting thing to say about the property of someone with dementia. Clearly the patient would be caused a massive amount of distress if their keepsake went missing. It could be the one item of their property they have any memory of. It could have been a childhood gift to them from their own parents.

Any staff are perfectly capable of rationalising that whilst golliwogs are no longer acceptable, this one is a remnant of the past giving comfort to someone seriously ill. Clearly this isn't going to be an ongoing issues given that golliwogs have been out of favour for a long time now. The staff are supposed to be professional, I'm sure they are perfectly capable of putting their personal feelings to one side in this instance. The patient is clearly not purposely trying to create offence

Doing the least harm is the most logical and kindest way forward. Throwing away a source of comfort to someone who is seriously ill would be the act of a monster.

Suggesting throwing away a dementia patients oldest belongings suggests a total lack of empathy from this poster towards an incredibly vulnerable person .

What a horribly cruel thing to say.

I think I caught the tail end of GW's , on Jam jars and marmalade jars.

How or why did they go from being acceptable to offensive?
I can't rem x

What would I do?

id accept the managements decision, and perhaps refresh your training on dementia patients

It's an interesting question 'Where do you draw the line?' Which side do 1970s Barbie dolls fall on - their representation if women is really unrealistic and offensive now. Would you take them as seriously?

Your commitment to the word gollywog is offensive, and inflammatory in the context of this thread.

It’s a golly or golly doll.

I think it’s indicative of culture gone mad when there is no room for nuance of individual circumstance or situation but rather a blanket insistence of being right.

Oh the irony, to live in such a black and white world.

OP, it’s okay that you’re offended. You’ll survive. Try having some empathy for someone other than yourself.

I’m only 45 and I remember an enamel pin/badge that I’d saved up marMalade labels to get with a golly face in among orange flowers- which my mum, a card carrying Amnesty International member sent off for me to get.

i vaguely remember them being abbreviated to golly, but they really really weren’t perceived or intended as rascist and that’s only 40 years ago.

when the resident was a child, that toy likely bore no racist connotations whatsoever

When my mum (who is now dead) was in the final few years of her life (still had mental capacity) she wanted to talk alot about her childhood, growing up and stuff like that. I like that is normal. One of the things she requested was to watch a film she loved as a child called 'Song of the south'. I can remember alot from when I was a child she would go about her housework happily singing the song 'zippidity do dah'. As a child I had no idea what it was except it sounded happy and cheery and that was how my mum sang it.

I got the dvd for her off ebay and we watched it together. For her it was a trip down memory lane and let her relive a happy time when she was a child. There was no malicious intent, thought or otherwise about it. I would imagine the toy is the same.

I would honestly ignore it. The toy is probably a huge security for a confused, frightened old woman with no malicious thought or intent. (My mum had dementia by the time she died)

Tbh I’m more disturbed by the lack of empathy for an old woman in the final throws of her life, her lifetime’s memory gradually eaten away while what remains has been shuffled like a deck of cards to the point where it’s not clear what’s real and what’s not. A horrible disease that we should all pray we never get. But yeah let’s take away her childhood toy to make US feel better

Seriously? They actually sell the ridiculous outdated racist dolls? Who the hell buys them?

Should you be in your line of work, OP, if you have no sympathy for old people with dementia, and no understanding that the attitudes prevelent mid-20C were nothing like attitudes today?