*WARNINGS apply to this post – descriptions of assault and abuse of people with disabilities, including sexual abuse*
The Australian: “Disability carer kicked man with steel-cap shoes”
A disability carer used steel-cap shoes to kick a man in the legs as payback for a bruise he had given her, a court has been told.
Joy-Anne Margaret Thompson, 32, was working at the Care Independent Living facility at Bribie Island between 2000 and 2003 when she carried out the retribution. The Brisbane District Court was told she took steel-cap shoes to work and told other carers she was going to use them on a 49-year-old resident with Down syndrome. [...]
She was one of eight people arrested following an investigation into abuse at the facility.
The Australian: “Disabled woman ‘assaulted by elderly man‘”
An man has been charged with indecently assaulting a young [intellectually] disabled woman in a shopping centre on Sydney’s north shore.
Police say a 77-year-old man approached the 23-year-old woman as she was walking through a shopping plaza in Lane Cove about 1pm (AEDT) yesterday. He allegedly indecently assaulted her and then left the area before the woman informed her mother, who contacted police.
The Daily Telegraph: “Rats in the public service ranks ”
In addition to an alarming increase in public servant misconduct, the report highlighted the appalling circumstances of a disabled man’s death in a government licensed boarding house last year.
Three months before he died the man was hospitalised with pneumonia. He was malnourished and so filthy that nurses “had to use a peroxide solution to remove dirt from his skin and nails”. When he died at the boarding house, staff did not find his body for at least 12 hours. Police found cobwebs and dust on his sheets and faeces and used toilet paper strewn around the room.
The Department of Disability, Ageing and Home Care said it was unable to enforce licensing conditions.
WA Today: “Mentally ill locked in Vic institutions”
Almost half of patients involuntarily locked in Victorian mental institutions for eight years or more and identified last year still have not been moved. Forty-seven of the 99 long-stay patients locked in secure extended care units (SECU) for eight years or longer identified in last year’s Community Visitors Annual Report remain, including one patient who has been locked up for 21 years.
According to the 2009 report, there are 11 long-stay patients in one institution alone who have been diagnosed as ready for discharge, but there is no community housing available in which to place them. [...]
Patients in the brain disorders unit at Mary Guthrie House have complex needs resulting from brain injuries and mental illness and require specialist support. But due to a lack of community-based specialist accommodation they are experiencing protracted stays in an institutional environment. One patient has been in the unit for 17 years.
Patients who are both intellectually disabled and mentally ill in the SECU at the Austin Hospital are in urgent need of community-based beds. A woman was allegedly sexually assaulted at the Ballarat SECU, where she was sharing a unit with 11 men for months.
Daily Mercury: “Unmasking sexual violence issues ”
Mackay Sexual Health and Sexual Assault Service health promotion officer Andrea Sauer said statistics showed one in three women and one in six men would be affected by sexual violence at some time.
“This is four times higher for people with a disability and one in five children will be sexually assaulted,” Ms Sauer said.
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It’s just utterly heartbreakingly awful and should be cause for outcry and rage across all communities. But yanno… Just awful. How tragic that we as a society discard and abuse people without batting an eyelid.
These stories are so sad. I find the first one in particular very disturbing – “She was one of eight people arrested following an investigation into abuse at the facility” (the link provides a little additional info but no details about 6 of those arrested). What else was happening at the facility that a total of eight people were arrested? The culture of that place must be horrific if a carer is avenging herself on those in her care by bringing steel capped boots. Where is the compassion and empathy, the duty of care, the professionalism?
This is horrific.
I do not understand how people can have so little empathy for fellow humans.