Shocking footage has emerged online today of 98-year-old Yvonne Grant begging for staff at her nursing home to help her go to the toilet. Yvonne called for help over 300 times in an hour but was ignored.
When a nurse eventually came to her room, she called her “vicious” and told Yvonne to just urinate in her incontinence pad.
http://youtu.be/DPzroIVFwsY?t=18s
Suspecting that staff at Oban House in London was mistreating Yvonne, her great-granddaughter Vanessa Evans planted a hidden camera in Yvonne’s room. But even Evans was shocked by the footage she saw.
Evans told BBC’s Panorama, “I was expecting to find something but I didn’t think it would be this extreme. Her calls were definitely ignored because the nurse’s station is right outside the room.”
The devastating footage has sparked outrage across the world, as it rightly should. The neglect and poor treatment of an elderly, scared and vulnerable woman is devastating to witness. But perhaps the reason that this particular video has deeply affected so many around the world is because it touches on a very real fear that many of us face when dealing with the reality of placing our loved ones in aged care.
We question if we’re doing the right thing. If we’re making the best decision. If we could be doing more. If we can possibly bear to leave the care of someone we love to a ‘stranger’. And really, it’s horror scenarios like this one that at the very centre of those fears. Scenarios where grandparents, parents, aunties, uncles, friends – people whom we love and want the best for – are ignored, neglected or even worse, abused.
What happened to Yvonne shows that while the vast, vast majority of carers are amazing, good, hard-working, phenomenal people – there are always risks for the more vulnerable in our society. And those risks are particularly real in a country like Australia.
Our population is ageing and we aren’t yet properly resourced or ready to respond to that. And the risk of a bad or abusive carer slipping through the cracks is much higher when the good ones are overworked, exhausted and desperate for help.
Yvonne died one month after this video footage was filmed. May she rest in peace.
Top Comments
I've worked in Aged Care as an EEN for the past 6 years. Yes, it can be very demanding as we are often understaffed, or have very mixed staffing levels (such as 1 RN/EEN to 4/5 PCAs). And there is always one worker who is beyond the job. But it takes a certain something to make a person stick to working in Aged Care. I can honestly say I have never come across anything as horrifying as that video on any shift I've worked. And I have also been on the other side of the fence with two grandparents being in two different homes, until their passing. And as I work in Aged Care I had MANY worries about them going into care, and I needn't have. Sadly, these things do happen. Family and other staff need to be vigilant and report any suspicion they may have over neglect. Unless it's reported, no action can be taken.
I also want to add that the staff to resident/patient ratio can be quite high sometimes, especially in the high care areas. As many high care patients need 2 or more staff, sometimes a resident will have to wait before being tended to for toilet etc.
We do the best that we can, but until the government steps up and puts more funding into Aged Care, the staff to resident ratios will remain the same.
I thought this incident was in the UK. Anyway, many nursing homes in Australia are run as a profit making business. Staffing is kept to a bare minimum. As seen by many of the comments here, Australians don't want to work in Aged Care. Unfortunately, nursing homes are the only option for some elderly who may have dementia and medical conditions requiring full time care, or their children are too elderly to provide care. However, when you speak to nursing home staff they will tell you that many old people have families who never visit. Even though staff are paid to provide care, how can anyone expect them to provide the caring and kindness that the families cannot be bothered with?