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SWEDISH ELDERLY CARE SCANDAL

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Care home staff weigh diapers to save money

Employees at the scandal-stricken care provider Carema's nursing homes in Sweden are instructed to weigh old age pensioners' diapers to assess if they are full or could be used longer, according to staff.

Care home staff weigh diapers to save money

“We’re not allowed to change the diaper until it has reached its full capacity. The aim is clearly to keep consumption down and save money,” an anonymous member of staff told daily Dagens Nyheter (DN).

The result is that the old people are left with wet diapers for hours before they are changed, staff claims.

Sources have described to DN how staff is also instructed to weigh the diapers regularly to ascertain how many hours the patient can wear it before it starts leaking.

This way, staff can work out which brand to use in order to have to change the diapers as seldom as possible and avoid “unnecessary” changing.

However, according to the company’s head of information, Elisabeth Frostell, the project was launched in order to try out what incontinence pad was best for each individual patient.

“It is not a question of residents being forced to wear wet diapers. The assessment is done with the client’s best interest at heart,” she told the paper.

The company also announced on Thursday that they are scrapping their controversial bonus program whereby management were said to reward the homes that managed to save the most money.

“The wrong things may never be prioritized. We have now banned all bonuses in our operations, and of course that goes for my own as well,” Carema CEO Carl Gyllfors wrote on the company website.

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Spain’s prosecutors file criminal complaint over virus care home death

Spanish prosecutors said Tuesday they have filed a criminal complaint against a Madrid care home doctor and its director over the Covid-related death of a resident, in the first such case in the capital region since the start of the pandemic

Spain's prosecutors file criminal complaint over virus care home death
Photo: AFP

Madrid's public prosecutor's office said the two women are suspected of manslaughter and denial of medical attention in relation to the death in March of a woman in her 80s who had just moved into the home.   

Madrid was one of the hardest-hit cities in Europe by the first wave of the pandemic, and the complaint is expected to be one of several alleging inadequate care at retirement homes during the period.

In a statement, the prosecutor's office said the doctor and the director of the home, who were not named, did not follow the protocol set up by the Madrid regional government for caring for residents during the pandemic.

The doctor “disregarded” the protocol and did not call a hospital about the woman, despite her worsening condition, until eight days after she began having breathing trouble.

“Despite her rapid transfer to hospital, she died the following day from cardiac arrest,” the statement said.

The care home's director “was aware of the patient's clinical situation (but) did nothing” to ensure she received health care during periods when the doctor was absent, notably on the weekend before her death, it added.   

Amnesty International warned earlier this month that conditions at elderly care homes in the Madrid region and in Catalonia remained “alarming” despite improvements.

In a sharply worded report, it said the “vast majority” of residents had not been properly cared for during the pandemic.

The measures put in place by both regions were “inefficient and inadequate” and violated the residents' rights, it said.   

Spain has been one of Europe's worst-hit countries, with the virus infecting more than 1.7 million people and causing over 48,000 deaths.

Close to half of that number are believed to be elderly people who died in homes, Amnesty said.

At the height of the first wave in March, Spanish soldiers helping to fight the pandemic found elderly patients in retirement homes abandoned and, in some cases, dead in their beds.

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