-With AAP
A daughter is heartbroken and horrified by the alleged abuse of her father at an aged care facility.
Sydney woman Ayda Celine had noticed dark bruises on her 82-year-old father David Nabulsi’s legs as well as changes in his mood, so she set up a hidden camera in his room to find out why.
Nabulsi has advanced dementia and was placed in an aged care home on Sydney’s Northern Beaches to ensure he had the round-the-clock care he required.
Celine and her family trusted the nurses, but police now allege one of them broke this trust by attacking her father, hitting him with a shoe and ripping his shirt off.
The video shows Nabulsi cowering before being hit a shoe and falling from his bed.
“The pain that he would have been through and he was so helpless that he couldn’t even call out for help and even if he did no one came to his aid,” Celine told 7 News.
“I wanted people to look after him as if he was their own father.”
A 35-year-old man has been charged with two counts of domestic violence-related common assault and using an offensive weapon with intent to commit an indictable offence.
He was granted conditional bail to appear at Manly Local Court on September 11.
“The employee in question has been dismissed and we are cooperating fully with NSW Police,” a Bupa spokesman said in a statement.
Bupa chief of staff Tony Forster told media that Bupa, which operates the care home, does not “condone or accept this behaviour,” before declining to comment further.
Celine stood with reporters during the stand up and was visibly upset by his statement: “He didn’t even say anything, no apology, no nothing, just walked away.”
The Australian Medical Association warns that elder abuse is likely to increase as Australia’s population ages.
Association president Tony Bartone said pressure is being put on an already underfunded aged care system.
“Increasingly, residential aged care facilities are relying on lesser-trained personal care assistants instead of registered and enrolled nurses,” he said.
Mamamia has contacted Celine for comment.
Top Comments
Aged care in Australia desperately needs more funding and bolstering of staff. Nothing will get better until we can fund a safe and professional nurse-to-resident ratio in each and every aged care facility in the country. It beggars belief that this issue isn't on the front page of every newspaper in the country: we're all going to get old, and the country has absolutely no sustainable contingency in place to support the ageing population as they become frailer and in need of more services and attention in the community.