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.