Police are
investigating a care home after a son exposed the shocking treatment of his
80-year-old mother by secretly recording staff.
Pete Rozanski, 56,
decided to take action after seeing the health of Grace Rozanska deteriorate at
the £1,000-a-week Wyndley Grange Nursing Home near Birmingham.
He planted a tablet
in her room at the home in Sutton Coldfield, and was left heartbroken when he
listened back to the recordings and heard his mother crying.
One carer can be
heard exclaiming: 'S**t! Dear God how smelly is it. Yak. Yak. Yak' while
changing her incontinence pad.
In another
conversation, one carer says to another: 'How am I supposed to hold her up and
wipe her a**e?'
Pete says harrowing audio clips captured carers using degrading and
abusive language as well as threatening Grace.
He said: 'They have
stripped her of her dignity and I had to expose what was happening because I do
not want another family to go through what we have gone through.'
He claims staff made
jokes about her incontinence, removed her TV, and then after not repositioning
her to prevent bed sores, falsified records to say they had.
West Midlands Police
confirmed an investigation into an alleged assault is underway and Birmingham
City Council is reviewing safeguarding procedures.
The watchdog Care
Quality Commission (CQC) says it is aware of the allegations and is liaising
with the police, council and NHS.
Today Mr Roaznski,
from Lichfield, Staffordshire, said: 'This is every son's nightmare, I knew she
was being mistreated but to hear it happening was heart-breaking.
'My mother has severe
vascular dementia and was officially diagnosed in 2014, but has been suffering
with the illness for a lot longer.
'She used to live
with me until March last year when she first went into the care home.
'She had always taken
a dislike to two of the carers, but they hadn't done anything wrong to her.
'She would roll her
eyes when they walked past and they knew she didn't like them.
'In June last year,
she was moved to a new unit and was the first resident in there.
'The whole thing
started when a manager told me they were putting mum on a behavioural chart as
she was resisting personal care and was lashing out.
'At first I didn't
think much of it as dementia can affect your personality and make you volatile.
'But over the next
few weeks, I spoke to some of the excellent carers - and there are some who are
wonderful to the residents - and they said they hadn't had any problems with
mum.
'I was going in every
day to give her some lunch because I wanted to make sure she was eating one
proper meal a day.
'Something bad must
have been going on because she was refusing to go back to her room because she
was associating it with bad events.
'They have stripped
her of her dignity and I had to expose what was happening because I do not want
another family to go through what we have gone through.'
In one recording a
carer can be heard saying: 'Let me change your pad. Oh dear, how smelly is it.
Yak.
The carer continues:
'Let me check your pad Grace, dirty isn't it?'
Grace replies: 'Don't
call it dirty', and the carer says: 'Why, you did something there, we didn't do
anything on the pad, it was you.'
Despite handing his
evidence to Birmingham City Council, the NHS and the Care Quality Commission
(CQC), an investigation was dropped when Pete moved Grace out of the care home
in a desperate bid to save her health.
He added: 'I have had
so many emails, conversations and meetings with different agencies and been
disgusted by the inaction over the evidence I have presented them.
'What more could they
possibly want, there was 30 instances of abuse and mistreatment which I
counted.
'Eventually, I took
mum out of the care home on August 17 this year and she is thriving at her new
care home.
'She is happy,
chatty, smiley and feeds herself most of the time now. She is a completely
different person.
'At first, the two
owners were very apologetic and I was hoping we could work together to improve
the situation, but then things turned nasty.
'I deeply believe
they wanted mum out of the care home so they made her more aggressive to push
the process along.
'Just because my
mother has left Wyndley Grange should not mean they get away it, I do not want
this happening to other vulnerable pensioners.'
The 23-room Wyndley
Grange Nursing Home is run by Homecroft Care Group, owned by brothers Guy and
Nic Murch.
Guy Murch said: 'A
complaint has been made by a relative of a former resident in relation to the
behaviour of an agency carer who was contracted to us for a short period of
time.
'This complaint is
being investigated by us and external agencies and until the investigation is
complete it would be inappropriate for legal and other reasons to comment
further.'
A spokesman for West
Midlands Police said: 'We can confirm that we have received an allegation of
assault on a resident at Wyndley Grange Nursing Home, Sutton
Coldfield. The investigation is on-going.'
Jenny Belza, Chief
Nurse and Quality Officer for NHS Birmingham Cross City Clinical Commissioning
Group (CCG) said: 'At Birmingham CrossCity CCG, the safety and quality of the
care received by our patients is of the utmost importance.
'As this matter is
subject to an ongoing police investigation, as well as our own internal
procedures, it would be inappropriate to provide any further comment at this
stage.'
David Gray, head of
adult safeguarding at Birmingham City Council, said: 'We are working with our
partners to establish whether there are any on-going safeguarding issues at
this nursing home that need to be addressed and we are continuing to liaise
with the home's owners on this matter.
'The safety and
dignity of our citizens remains an absolute priority for all of us as a
city.'
SOURCE: Martin
Robinson, Mail Online
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