Jail staff who violently abuse nursing home residents says Offaly TD
Independent TD Carol Nolan describes RTE programme's revelations as 'brutality'
INDEPENDENT TD for Offaly Carol Nolan has said she wants to see “each and every person found guilty of abusing elderly and vulnerable nursing home residents arrested and their ability to ever work in such settings removed for life.”
The Independent TD said that to call what we have seen revealed by RTE in some of our nursing homes ‘a betrayal’ is an understatement; “it is brutality, plain and simple,” she said:
“While we all accept that you can never definitively eradicate the scope for a minority of ruthless people to end up working in care settings of any description, that does not mean that we cannot legislate for the hammer of the law to come on those people who are subsequently found to be despicably abusive toward our elderly,” said Deputy Nolan.
“What we have seen recently on our screens is the vicious erosion of trust that is sickening to the core.”
“It is my hope each and every person who is found to have violently or psychologically abused our elderly is arrested. I also want to see their ability to ever work in such settings removed for life. People who abuse our elderly are, in my view, nothing short of animals engaged in the brutalisation of our loved ones. No regulatory or disciplinary mercy must be shown to them. No excuses about regulatory failures or reporting must be offered.”
“They are a stain on the good name of genuine nursing home staff and all of those nursing homes who cherish their residents. The signal must go out, that if you mistreat or assault our elderly you will be jailed.”
“If you violate their dignity, you will answer for it before the courts and not just some professional standards tribunal.”
“People are sick and tired of these kinds of action. They want binding guarantees that the excuses and the tolerance for this wretched behaviour is at end.”
“By all means let us get on with the work of reforming our safeguarding laws to ensure that we address these scenarios as best we can, but in the meantime the full force of the existing criminal law should be utilised to the fullest extent possible when dealing with that minority of staff who treat our elderly like pieces of dirt,” concluded Deputy Nolan.