Nurse sacked after repeated abuse of elderly man

A SENIOR nurse at a respected public nursing home has been sacked after subjecting an elderly man in his 70s to a sustained period of physical and mental abuse.

The Irish Examiner has learned that management at the 35-bed Dean Maxwell Community Nursing Unit in Roscrea, Co Tipperary, were forced to dismiss the nurse after a series of concerns were raised by other staff over unexplained injuries found on the resident.

After more than a dozen formal complaints over the conduct of the staff nurse throughout 2007, including repeated reports of physical abuse against the elderly man, who has since died of an unrelated illness, local health authorities opened an investigation into the incidents.

The staff nurse at the centre of the inquiry insisted he was innocent of the allegations.

However, after an in-depth investigation called for under elder abuse protection policy, the inquiry committee concluded that there was irrefutable evidence the violent physical and verbal abuse had occurred, and immediately dismissed the staff member.

“Whilst no system can absolutely guarantee that abuse and mistreatment will never occur, we can be reasonably confident that such cases are the exception,” said the HSE’s local health management Bernard Gloster.

“What is of most importance is that when such issues do arise there is firstly a culture by which staff and indeed the public can openly raise their concerns,” he said.

The abuse, which is one of more than 250 formal complaints made against public nursing homes in the past two years, emerged more than four years after the Leas Cross scandal and a fortnight before stringent new national standards are introduced in all nursing homes next month.

Speaking before the launch of world elder abuse awareness day next Monday, Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd said the incident confirmed that despite precautions elderly people are still at risk of sustained institutional abuse.

He added that as a result of the incident he has asked Health Minister Mary Harney to make all elderly abuse claims in state institutions public.

The HSE has already confirmed that 158 complaints were made against nursing homes last year.

Among the most serious complaints were of physical injury, hygiene, staff shortages, staff behaviour, and the employment of unqualified clinicians to cover units.