Thursday 30 April 2009

Whistleblowing nurses

Following the Panorama programme in 2005 (which I didn't see) in which neglect and abuse of vulnerable elderly residents in a nursing home was exposed with the help of nurse Margaret Haywood, she was disciplined by the Nursing & Midwifery Council and struck off.

The Royal College of Nursing has launched an online petition to support their appeal against what they consider to be an unnecessarily harsh 'sentence'.

I do not know all the facts of the case - the RCN presumably aren't publishing these because they are 'sub judice' - but according to Jenni Murray writing in the Guardian this week, the residents and their families (with one exception) had given permission for the filming, and all appropriate routes for raising concerns had already been taken.

Seems to me that when all you have left to bring any quality to your life is human relationships and your dignity, nothing is more important than treating people with dignity, and any such treatment should automatically be right at the top of any institution's priorities.

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