It indeed is disgraceful that a mix-up between Tameside Council and care firm Care UK left an 85-year-old bedridden widow – a dementia patient - without food and water for more than three days --- and, come to think of it, the widow, Beryl Carter, has made an outstanding contribution to her country!
The apathy of the authorities is really reprehensible; more so when one learns that Carter proudly served her country during the Second World War, as one of the Land Army; and her husband had served in the RAF. Moreover, after the war, the couple - from Audenshaw, Manchester - travelled the world together in service to Britain.
It apparently was the council authorities’ switching of care that resulted in a situation wherein Carter – who is generally visited four times everyday and needs help in getting up, getting dressed, as well as eating and drinking - was left all alone for three days.
The new firm Care UK – which took over the care contract from Housing 21’s council - mistakenly believed that Carter was in hospital all the while, and help came her way only after neighbours raised the alarm. And, it goes without saying that Carter was found in a distraught state!
About the blunder, Care UK spokeswoman Sheila Roberts said: “As soon as we heard what had happened, we sent a senior member of the team round to the lady’s house and immediately put in place the care that she required. We are conducting our own inquiry as to how this delay in communications occurred”! www.topnews.nz
21 comments:
Disgusting but sadly it's the nature of a broken, carless, society.
There are plenty of cars, but nobody seems to care.
Re the previous posting: Edinburgh University's Centre For Cardiac Research's latest findings, funded by the British Heart Foundation, suggests that diesel fumes significantly increase your risk of a heart attack, and that diesel fumes are as bad for your heart as they are known to be for your lungs.
Thank you Messrs Hall and Watkinson for highlighting the combined dangers of pollution, congestion (in many cases unnecessary), and diesel fumes.
I think there is a lot to be said about how we treat our elderly folk.
I don't undertsstand why so many old people are in care, where are their children?
Don't people care about their parents and grandparents?
My guess is that the pathetic so called British people are too busy chasing their careers or running away to the colonies to care about their own blood.
The British who lived during the war were everything we should be and it is disgraceful that their descendants care nothing about them. Aesir help us if our elders had fought in an unpopular war!
Disgraceful, those responsible should be severely punished.
But the issue of massive numbers of elderly people living in a state of mental or physical semi death needs resolving.
People should be given the option, whilst they are compos mentis, to make a legally binding document that states they should be euthanised if they are medically diagnosed as having degenerated beyond a certain point.
We have been giving the environment good kicking for a while now in the name of progress. Its such a shame that the people who suffer are rarely those instrumental in it.
I advocate self sufficiency as much as possible. I intend to eventually generate most of my own electricity and grow and kill most of my food.
If we hadnt gotten ahead of ourselves in the name of greed and industrialisation and kept to healthy rural communities we would find both our phsyical and mental health much improved.
Sounds a bit medieval. Progress requires motivation of the individual. The most significant incentives have always been status, power, sex and wealth as they are intrinsic to human nature.
It's when these baser or basic motives TAKE OVER that things start to go wrong. This is exactly what has happened as globalised capitalism, i.e exploitation, controlled by international moneymen has seeped in. There are signs however that this fundamentally rotten system is beginning to crack.
The disease is so deep rooted it needs to be purged in blood.
BBC local TV news at 6-30 on Weds 12th July DID NOT CARRY THIS STORY.
Earlier the national news carried iy but said it was in MANCHESTER!
MMMMMM...are we in "Suppressing sensationalist mews stories" mode again??
I have a couple of elderly relatives receiving home visits....the quality is CRAP!! I visit them every day to check on them, such is the lack of faith I have in their "carers"....amd I have Parkinson's!!!
Very sad!
Tony, the source used by TC is a New Zealand based news organisation so you might have a valid point about this being surpressed locally.
We must fight against much of our 'human' nature. There are two fores at work in a human being, mind and body. The body urges us to seek material gain and materialistic pleasures, the mind urges us to become something higher, intelligent, selfless.
Ultimately we should try and achieve what the Buddhists call enlightenment, to distance ourselves from the pull of desire and to find peace with our minds and our existence.
If we are to attain a higher state of being, which I believe was the reason our race was created, then we must conquer the animal insticts which consume the lesser races.
I recommend a more iron age existance than a medieval one to be honest, I characterise the middle ages of the time of ignorance (aka christianity)
The mind doesn't exist, only the brain.
There's nothing base or wrong with rewarding people for trying to improve themselves, without an incentive they won't bother doing anything, why would they? Would you go to work if they didn't pay you?
We're animals but a vastly superior form, the problems for our species start when the incentives take over, become an end in themselves and the drive for progress is consequently diminished.
We need to cast off superstition and religion but keep some of the basic values that we know work: Family values, law and order, self discipline, respect both earned and given. Most importantly we need to reward correct behaviour and punish incorrect behaviour, this creates order, which is the foundation and wellspring of progress. The things that animals respond best to are carrot and stick.
This story IS front page on the Advertiser so it is not totally surpressed.....but how widely is the Advertiser read?
The lack of coverage in the broadcast media is puzzling
I see an old lady being harassed by kids across from me.
Knocking on her window, kicking the ball against her wall, and bin.
One particular girl making an habit of doing it.
Wish her parent/s could see their child doing this.
But would they care?
A significant and increasing number of children in this country are feral subhumans. They need some humility, fear and respect beating into them.
Have been speaking to people "in the know".
It would appear that the 4th July change over of "care" companies was not as smooth as we are led to believe.
Staff have not been paid and there are other neglected pensioners due to records not being handed over (I have been told of one man in Ashton left alone from Monday to Thursday.)
There is talk of giving the contract back to the original company.
Spare the rod...
It just seems pointless to complain anymore.
Ben Buckley of new charter housing, responsible for the area, is always making excuses.
One old lady in her 80's is fed up with it all.
You ask Mr Buckley why new charter put the fencing and gates up?
"to improve the area make life better for residents, stop anti-social behaviour"
You tell the guy, they're swinging on the gates slaming them back and forth.
He tells you "they've got to play somewhere"
Now Ben Buckley informs me of new charter's plans to put bushes in with the fencing.
To stop them swinging on the gates and playing football on the green.
Wonderful that should do it Ben.
If you justifiably complain about scum repeatedly making people's lives a misery you're classed as a troublemaker. Why, because it exposes the failings of those in power to deal with the problem.
Would you leave your parents alone for three days if you knew they were ill, the family have some shame and blame also.
I blame Lynn Travis
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