NURSING HOME SCANDAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 102, 2 May 1925, Page 23

NURSING HOME SCANDAL.

HUGE PROFITS. DELIRIOUS WOMAN IK LOCKED ROOM. for the task, may run a nursing home; and big profits are made annually out of the sufferings of the sick, who are duped into paying monstrous lees for so-called 'nursing' t&at Iβ often worse than none at all." This was one of the revelations recently made by an official of the leading nursing organisation in London, which is promoting the new bill for the compulsory registration of nursing homes. "The conditions obtaining in hundreds of these so-called nursing homos throughsystem are appalling," continued the official. "Lack of proper equipment and trained staff, insufficient accommodation, and Infeatures of these places. Sleep in Bathroom. "T know of many casee where patients were obliged to Bleep in the bathroom, and even in the operating theatre, because there were not enough bedrooms. quickly that a patient who hns died of some infectious disease, may be followed by a clean surgical case, without any attempt being made to disinfect the room or the bed. "These establishments are a national peril. The nursing is careless and untrained, staffs being engaged who have no proper qualifications, and who are not registered. t'nclcanllnesß Is rife and sometimes reachee a degree Impossible to describe. "I know of a case In which a patient died for want or attention at a critical time, simply because the only 'nurse' on night duty was a young and totally untrained girl. "The prices charged at these homes, which are run purely aa profit-making enterprises, are exorbitant. They range from £15 15/ a week, and charges for 'extras' are calculated robbery. "A woman who is now running such nn establishment confessed to mc that she had kept her husband, four children, and a governess, besides running the home, and had £1000 clear profit at the end of the year. This home had only eight beds. No Proper Accounts. "Naturally, no proper accounts are kept at euch places, and it is difficult to estimate average profits. As, however, some of these homes possess as many as 34 beds, it may well be imagined on what a huge scale money Is made by these ghouls, who batten on human pain. "One of the most terrible instances of the methods I am describing was the ense of an elderly woman who, becoming delirious after an operation, was locked in her room and left alone all night by the nurse, who explained that "tho old woman's merely got bats in tho belfry.' "