Okay, continuing on the same theme, when my mother first went into care, the Home said it offered all sorts of extra services, like supplying newspapers (at a price) and sundry other things. Then it changed its mind and said it couldn't obtain newspapers so I would have to find another option. That option appeared in the guise of a seemingly helpful staff member who lived across the road from the Home. She said she visited the newsagent's before work every morning and it would be no bother to get my mother's paper at the same time. She even dropped into work for a while on her days off, and said she would bring in a newspaper then, too.
This went on for a while until management advised me at a care review that it wasn't a good idea. I told the staff member I'd find another way of procuring newspapers, but she said "Nah, don't worry about that, I'll continue to get her papers, 'cos I do what I like, I don't listen to them!" How nice, I thought, so on top of the £50 per month I'd being giving her for the papers, I started giving the woman a gratuity of £20 each month (£70 in total) and she carried on getting them. Then, one evening, I noticed my mother didn't always get a paper and expressed to another member of staff my concern, who must've mentioned it to the other woman.
(I should perhaps explain that my mother has a memory retention span of around 15-20 seconds. Often, when she gets to the end of a newspaper, she goes right back to the beginning and starts again. However, reading a paper had been part of her daily routine back home and become a habit, which I was trying to maintain for the sake of consistency.)
Next time I visited, the 'paper lady' came into my mother's room and said she'd forgotten to get a paper last time, so she'd bought a TV mag to make up for it. Price of TV mag? Around 45 pence, compared to the cost of around £1.30 for a paper. This happened a few times, and I became concerned about not all the money I supplied for newspapers being spent as it should. I mentioned this to the woman, who told me to get the papers myself then, which I'd been considering doing anyway. However, she still owed my mother two papers as I'd given her the money for them a month in advance. I was visiting my mother the night after she should've been supplied with the two papers (one a daily, one a weekly), but they were nowhere in sight.
What was in sight, though, were various newspapers from several prior visits, as they hadn't been thrown out. Why would the newest two papers be absent when older ones were still there? The woman claimed she'd given them to other staff to give to my mother, and even mentioned a 'witness'. When speaking to the person later, her response was "Witness? I wasn't even there!" So, here's a bit of interactive participation for you. What do you call a person who doesn't spend all the money she's given for newspapers on newspapers, and who lies about it? Over to you...
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| Lorraine Miller |
8 comments:
Kid, you need to be cautious about posting their ugly mugs, firstly you'll damage your scanner, and secondly, if they ever found out, they may seek 'BS' legal charges of deformation of character and emotional injury, from you? We all know they're evil 'she-bitches', but the crappy law system doesnt, and at this stage, they won't see your fully justified reasons for anquish. I wouldn't wish that for you, and it won't help you fight your case...please be careful friend, you are better known on the internet than you think!
Thanks for the advice, though I think it would only be defamation of character if what I was saying was untrue, AAW. Also, when a shoplifter gets their face in the paper, they could claim emotional injury, couldn't they? However, that never happens. I don't think they could ban me from visiting for these posts, that's probably why they're alleging other things. Apparently, the staff feel intimidated by me. Must've guilty consciences is all I can say.
Definitely guilty, but the Police these days are not so just, in their approach to law enforcement. 'Defamation', my bad! Deformation? that's shape shifting isn't? "Ha ha"
Looking at the mugshots, AAW, 'deformation' maybe wasn't too far off the mark.
Sorry I read your first post before reading AAWs comment, but I do think he is right, you need to be cautious here posting pics. . Although nowhere near the horrors ( I think that's the right word) your going through but my partner's dad's had some issues in hospital. He broke his hip at home in April and they did well operated etc . But then he had to go back in for another issue and guess what, yep no one on ward and he fell and broke his other hip. Today we got a call from hospital, to say he had another fall and smacked his head bad ( thankfully ok) on both occasions no one in the so called intensive care ward. And he was actually in for a blood check and ended up with this
Kid, your current situation reminds me of something that happened in my own family. Back in 1983 my mother went to visit her Uncle Henry who was a pensioner living in Neath in South Wales and there'd been some kind of arrangement whereby Henry's meals were prepared by a neighbour who was paid for the task but my mother discovered that the neighbour had been neglectful and Henry was going without regular meals so she stormed around to the neighbour's house and raised holy hell. Normally my mother was a placid little woman who wouldn't say boo to a goose but on this occasion she was absolutely livid about the shoddy treatment of her uncle. I think the situation was resolved but Henry died a few months later anyway.
And they usually have a ready-made 'excuse' in that they're under-staffed and under-funded, which, while being true, is absolutely no excuse at all , nor any comfort to yourselves. We all hope he gets better soon, McS.
As for the photos, if I'm legally forced to take them down, at least they've been seen by many thousands of people. My visiting stats for last month were over 678,000 so this blog doesn't get ignored, even if most people don't comment.
In my case, we're not talking about huge sums, CJ, but it's the principle of the thing. The money for papers should have been spent on my mother, and even small sums add up. Perhaps the lapses were oversights and it wasn't her intention to 'misappropriate' anything, but at the end-of-the day, it amounts to theft of a kind. Had she been more remorseful, I might have spared the woman her 'indiscretions'.
And good on your mother and sad to hear about Uncle Henry.
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