Hi, I’ve already posted a similar msg on this site. Last Sunday my mums Carers injured her. I’m not sure how it happened but whilst moving her in her wheelchair they caught her foot and cut it. H has three deep cuts on the top of her foot. She had to stitches in hospital. I don’t know what to do about the care agency, the Carers have been suspended. A number of my friends say I should sue the company. This is the 2nd time Carers have injured my mum, the first time they cut her tow of nearly. Now through a lack of concentration they have cut her again. I feel so overwhelmed by this all i don’t know what to do!
Hi Callie,
You could consider taking legal advice. Many solicitors will do a free initial consultation to see if you have a case.
I did see your earlier post, and although we all know accidents can happen, what most disgusted me was that they did not want to seek medical help for your mum (presumably because they knew they’d be in trouble), and they proceeded to shower her anyway, when she was sufficiently badly injured to need hospital treatment. To me, this alone screams negligence, even if the initial accident was something that could have happened to anyone. A responsible carer would immediately have owned-up and sought the requisite help, not tried to carry on as if it hadn’t happened.
I know you mentioned previously you did not want the carers to lose their jobs. I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with you there. They DO need to lose their jobs, as they are not fit to be caring for vulnerable people like your mum. If they stay in the job, it’ll be someone else next. I expect the care company will go on about retraining, blah, blah, but I’ve never accepted you can train somebody to care, who just doesn’t. These are not the right type of people to be working in a “caring” profession, because a “caring” person does not need training to get medical help if someone in their care has been injured - they would do it automatically.
It does occur to me this might even be a police matter. It’s not OK to injure someone in your care, and then refuse to call an ambulance.
I’m really sorry this has happened to you - it makes me queasy just thinking about it. Although I’m the one with MS, I have an elderly mother living alone. I envisage that at some point she will need care. There no longer seems to be any organisation you can trust to look after loved ones, if you are not able to.
I’m sorry if I’ve not really given any answers. I do think a free initial consultation with a solicitor might be the way forward. Even if you decided not to sue, they could also advise whether this is potentially a police matter. I think these people need to be stopped from working, I really do - in that line of work, at least.
Tina
x
Dear Tina, Thank you for your reply. It’s nice to hear what other people think, at the moment I am at such a loss as to what to do and so confused. You are right that the Carers should be sacked. It’s just me worried about people loosing their jobs at such a time. I am too sensitive. C x
Hi again Callie,
Just think how you’d feel if you read in the paper that someone else’s mum had died, and it turned out it had been the same carers responsible? Wouldn’t you wish then you had got them barred?
Even if your mum has made a good recovery (which I hope she has), and it’s water under the bridge for her, I think these people have to be stopped from working with others. Their livelihood is not more important than somebody else’s life.
If they’d acted properly as soon as it happened, I might be more sympathetic. Things sometimes go wrong, even if someone was trying their best to be careful. But they were only interested in saving their own skins, and not in trying to help your mum. Unacceptable.
T.
x
Hi Callie, my oldest daughter is a home carer and she has reported a couple of other carers for having long acrylic nails on. Nothing was done and one of my daughters ladies had her leg ripped right down her shin with one of her nails, my daughter phoned me to ask advice. I told her to check the ladies book and see if it was reported, it was not. Told her to phone office and report it, she did and again nothing was done as the girl with the long acrylic nails is the head carers daughter. I drill it into my daughter to treat her ladies/men as she would want someone to treat her gran/grampa. Listening to some of her stories there are a lot of carers out there that don’t understand that the clue to the profession is in the name. I am not a great believer in suing people but sometimes there may be no other route to punish people. What the “carers” did to you mum is awful and at the very least they should lose their jobs. The care industry needs to be shaken up and more guidelines and professional qualifications put in place and a independent body put in place to do random checks on the care provided. I know there is the care inspectorate but they appear to have no teeth and don’t really seem to do much of anything. I hope you get better carers for your mum and the old ones get their due punishment. Linda x
Hi Callie, I manage two residential homes for adults with learning difficulties so have lots of experience in the care industry. You must report this to your local social services, if you get no response then you can go to CQC care quality commission, you will find their contact details on the web. This is totally unacceptable and must be dealt with. They should have also filled in a injury report too, did they do this ? If you need anymore advice please pm me. The care industry gets a lot of negative feedback but I would just like to say there are some excellent carers and people like the ones who have been dealing with your mum give us all a bad name. Hope you can resolve this issue. Kind regards Karen
Hi Callie
I have MS and this happened to me - I reported it to the care agency and not much happened. I actually had an appointment with my MS nurse a couple of days later, she was horrified by my black eye and fractured cheekbone (I fell having just got out of the shower and my carer had left the room while I was trying to dry myself to take a phone call!). They didn’t even call the doctor or patch me up - my son did that. She told me to report it to social services. The carer and the agency were investigated for abuse - they take it quite seriously - the final outcome is not yet concluded but I get much better “service” from the carers now.
You do need to report it, it could be worse next time. This wasn’t the first accident I had while the carer was there.
Carol
Hello Thanks to everyone here whose sent me a post. To date the care company have apologised and have said that they are investigating the incident. The Social Services are now involved too, however it took them over 2 weeks to respond to an email I sent and they only acted after I got my local MP involved! I have also contacted the Care Quality Commission. I now just wait to see what comes of all these investigations. Thankfully my mum’s wounds are healing, they are not completely healed and still need the nurses to come and dress them. Callie