Salaam
Thought I'd share this, shocking in this day and age :(
Disturbing Panorama special investigation into the horrific abuse suffered by severley disabled and vulnerable patients at the Winterbourne View private hospital in Bristol presented by Paul Kenyon
The reaction to these events was universal condemnation - think this comment sums it up best
A troubling idea of 'care’
We learnt this week that the horrors we thought were left behind in the 1960s are still with us.
More than 40 years ago, Britain was scandalised by reports of the physical abuse of people with learning difficulties at Ely Hospital in Cardiff. The subsequent public inquiry proved a landmark in the way this country viewed the treatment of those with disabilities. Yet we learnt this week that the horrors we thought were left behind in the 1960s are still with us. BBC’s Panorama has performed a public service in exposing the violent physical abuse routinely meted out to people with learning difficulties by their “carers” at a Bristol residential hospital.
We should all feel uncomfortable at these sickening scenes. It says something profoundly disturbing about our society that the most vulnerable among us can be so cruelly abused in what should be a place of safety and warmth. The scenes were reminiscent of the footage that was sometimes smuggled out of East European mental institutions before the collapse of communism. What makes the case all the more troubling is that a former nurse had complained to managers about the quality of care last October. Nothing was done. In December, the nurse took the complaint to the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Nothing was done. This is unacceptable.
It is fervently to be hoped that it is a one-off, but can we be sure? Such abuse is at the extreme end of a spectrum that also takes in the callousness shown by some in health and social care towards those in their charge. Recently, the CQC revealed that elderly patients in NHS hospitals were left in nappies because nursing staff did not want to help them use a commode; others were prescribed water by doctors because their nurses were not checking whether they were drinking or eating enough. If the measure of a civilised society is the standard of care we afford the vulnerable and the old, we are falling far short.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/t...a-of-care.html