anyone watch panaroma tonight on bbc1

[poncho]

I was disgusted by the way that philopeno bloke treated that old lady when having a bath. the care home and company swept the whole incident under the carpet. it makes you wonder how other care homes treat there residents and get away with it!

 

[weasel]

I didn't see it, but I wouldn't be surprised at what goes on in care homes.

My company builds nursing homes so I have a fair bit of experience with this. We don't actually provide any care but I have dealings with care providers and with Social Services and ocassionally the CQC. I could write an entire essay on this issue but as this is a public forum I won't. Safe to say I don't have a high opinion of any of the three. But the two goverment bodies redefine incompetance. The things that go on there are breath taking and yet no one holds them to account over it.

 

[BlueDog]

My wife spent many a year working in aged care, our system here is an absolute disgrace. Week in week out you hear horror stories from our aged care facilities.

Anything form being left to sit in their own faeces because the carer couldn't speak enough English to understand they needed the toilet not a cup of tea, to being bathed in ****ing kerosene to treat scabies!!!

My wife would come home in tears from a shift due to what she would have to see these folk go through. The poor old dears weren't even given turkey at Christmas one year because the manager decided they wouldn't remember by the end of the day what they had eaten for lunch so it would be a waste of money, some of these people were returned service men and women from WWII and this is how we treat them!

It got to the point that she and some fellow carers took it upon themselves the following year to supply and pay for presents and decorations for Christmas day as once again management deemed it an unnecessary expense, utter bullshit! The way these folk were treated was an absolute disgrace, some had even ( been talked into ) donated their family homes to the nursing home in return for them being able to see out their days in this place. This particular home was run and owned by the Salvation Army, who several years later sold their nursing homes taking with them a fortune in donated houses.

We have both decided neither of our parents will ever end up in one, I already have my 76 yr old Dad living with us as my Mum past on a few years ago. It's hard at times as you don't really get to function as a husband and wife should :lol:, and her being a nurse certainly helps. ( with aged care not wifey duties ).

I really fear the storm that's coming with ageing populations and not enough affordable aged care. Hospitals here are already at bursting point as people are pretty much dumping their elderly on the public health system as they can't afford the sometimes exorbitant fees some of the facilities charge.

None of this is aimed at yourself Weaz, as you said you just build em and I would imagine you've seen some horrible ****. Not sure how things are in the UK with ageing populations and all but the baby boomer's are hitting that stage in life here and I don't think anyone's truly ready for it.

Sorry for the rant, this subject really gets to me.

 

[weasel]

No offence taken at all. I agree with you totally.

We approached the local health authorities a few months ago about building a care village, the idea being elderly people can move into a small complex and as their needs intensify they simply move from low intensity/fold standard houses/flats to more traditional nursing home types, and if needs be to a final intensive building. All this on the same site so they don't have to worry about moving to a new location and not knowing anyone etc. The buildings would all be based on the same footprint again seeking to minimise any trauma caused by the move. The health authorities were very keen and said it was exactly what the wanted and that they could fill it in no time, I think it was a 32 bed unit. They then turned round and said they could pay at most X per resident per week. X actually worked out at less than the mortgage costs for the building! That's before a single penny had been paid for care, food, electricity, heat etc.
I remember looking at the woman and asking if she was serious. Her response "Yeah, I know, but the Gov gave all their money to the bankers."
In that meeting there was myself and another representative from our company, and 27 (yes, twenty seven) people from various organisations within the health service. I couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, more money cold be spent on care if a few of those jobs were amalgamated or heaven forbid, they actually did some work rather than sitting in ****ing meetings all day.

 

[BlueDog]

Yep bureaucratic nonsense at it's finest, Australia is the single most over governed country in the world. Federal, state, local so on and so forth, thousands of ministers assigned to what sounds like at times made up portfolios, I'm sure if I looked hard enough I would find a minister for complimentary parliamentarian arse wiping, god knows they dribble enough **** to warrant it.

I'm certain if they cut the number of politicians, politician reps, unnecessary levels of council and even some public servant jobs they would be able to afford some very well needed infrastructure, but what do I know? Surely building new hospitals, aged care facility's, mental health centres can't do anyone any good other wise the pollies would be building them instead of another football stadium ( don't get me wrong I love sport but I'm thinking six major sporting arena's in one city is probably enough ), not too mention a part public funded giant Ferris Wheel that cost 100 million dollars to build only to find out it was majorly ****ed only six months after opening and needed to be rebuilt :twisted:

I don't envy you one bit mate, you must have a bruised tongue from having to bite it dealing with these people. I think I now understand why you spend so much time on here having a Yak, you'd need the stress relief. :lol:

 

[weasel]

They are changing the way Helath Care is provided over here. things called PCT's (Primary Care Trusts) are being scrapped and GP's are being given more power. Obviously, once this was announced everyone in the PCT's jumped ship to various other levels of the health service. One sector that's taking over the care of elderly mentally infirm people took on the work load of four of the department heads in the PCT we deal with. This was a work load that realistically, one very competant, no-nonsense person could probably just about handle, but as it's public sector obviosuly four people had to do it. When the work load was transferred across it was decided it was too much for four people to do so they employed.............wanna guess!?....................Nope..............Higher...........SIXTEEN!
Sixteen people to do the jobs that were previously done by four and that could, and indeed would, be done by one in the private sector.
It gets better, all 16 people were on the same pay level that the four people were on previously. So instead of four people on £40-£50,000 doing a job one person could do, we now have sixteen! That's £640-£800K to do a job ONE person would do in the private sector, and do for probably a twentieth of that!
And will anything actually get done with 16 people involved.....................Too many cooks...