Care staff refuse to help elderly woman up stairs...in case they are injured

[von-Scharnhorst]

A 99-year-old great-grandmother has been told carers cannot help her climb the stairs - because she might fall and hurt them.

Frail Edna East, who is just 4ft 9ins tall, is deemed to be such a threat to carers' safety that they said she must instead spend hundreds of pounds on a stairlift.

The seven-stone widow's daughter, Suzanne Singer, who looks after the pensioner at her home, branded the policy as "absolutely barmy." The decision was made after the firm contracted by Oxfordshire County Council to provide care provision carried out a risk assessment.

Four weeks later Mrs Singer received a letter from Enara Community Care, who visit clients in the morning and again in the evening, dropping the bombshell.

Mrs Singer said: "How ludicrous can you get? My mother is still perfectly able to climb the stairs with just a little bit of supervision.

"Surely the main role of her carers was to ensure her safety. To say they can't help her because of a possible injury risk is barmy.

"How risky is it to help an elderly woman up the stairs? They said she could fall on a carer and injure them but she's never fallen before. You could understand it if she was clinically obese but she never goes beyond seven stone.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=410313&in_page_id=1770

[HexAttack]

My wife worked in a care home on nights. She had an incident where an elderly lady had wet and was trying to get out of bed. The wife heard her and entered the room to find her held on the bed with her legs slipping on the now a wet floor. She assisted and in the process hurt her own back (no lasting damage). The wife was told by management that she should have let her fall. These places are so concerned with being prosecuted for putting there employees at risk they are unable to supply the level of care you would expect. The employees often have to break the management rules to get there jobs done however if anything does go wrong the management can blame the employee for not following the procedures.

[Nicholas]

The whole health and safety and compensation culture is ruining every part of our society. The health and safety officers and personal injury solicitors are the real Nazis. From a personal perspective i work in a very large iron works who because of health and safety officers are going to have to install a certain ventilation system in our foundry. All good and well but it costs so much that the company directors are looking at closing us down and moving production to China or India. I think all those damned trade unionists from the seventies and eighties are being reborn as health and safety officers.

[von-Scharnhorst]

... personal injury solicitors are the real Nazis.
Solicitors are just opportunistic. They are not mking, or enforcing the laws/rules, merely spotting where they can be used to make some cash.

You may not like them, but that IS what they earn their bread and buter from.