‘Bed with urine’: Abuses against dementia patients in the UK

Violet’s health deteriorated at the hospital: prolonged exposure to urine caused swelling in her hips and a rash from that area to her abdomen.

She died a few weeks later.

“I feel like her dignity has been taken away from her. And it happens to many dementia patients. I think they stop worrying about them, they feel like they’re insignificant – that’s not true,” says Heather.

The Violet case is not just for the NHS, the UK’s public health organization.

A new report has been released exclusively on the project File in 4 From BBC Radio 4, other dementia patients had similar treatment, which was considered “ineligible” by the authors.

For one year, Katie Featherstone, a researcher at the Keller Institute for Aging and Memory, University of West London, studied the inclusion of dementia patients in three hospitals in England and Wales.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and Care Research and the UK Health Research Agency.

In that report, he says, he found patients who could not be helped to go to the bathroom – patients who were left wet and dirty and exposed to their own feces.

“We have identified a widespread practice: the daily use of diapers or abstinence pads in caring for everyone with dementia, regardless of their ability to retain urine,” Featherstone explains.

He also found that most patients were treated well in the NHS, but due to stress and staff shortages many caregivers were forced to use diapers or sanitary pads as an “alternative solution”.

When 86-year-old Bessie fell home and was taken to Rotherham General Hospital in 2019, she was still able to go to the bathroom alone.

Nonetheless, her daughters John Ward and Susan Norton say the group did not respond when Bessie was asked to go to the bathroom.

Unbeknownst to the daughters, the hospital also put out non-existent pads. “My mom had no way to go to the bathroom,” says John.

“She knows what she’s doing. She’s going to make a big noise if she wants to go to the bathroom. If no one is helping her with that, she’s frantically yelling for someone to come.”

Must have been recommended to special incapacity staff in a special NHS unit in the Bessie region.

After that, John and Susan realized that their ability to go to their mother’s bathroom alone, along with her weak movement, were two factors that put her at risk for another fall at home.

The daughters wanted to move their mother to a nursing home closer to home, but the hospital and community services refused.

They said Bessie suffered from incontinence and came up with a maintenance plan to provide extra caregivers, toilets and incontinence pads (although this never happened).

At Bessie’s first night home, John was with her when the caretakers came in with the urinal.

Janine says, “They put her in the pot. The curtains in the room were still open. It was a big picture window. I can not explain how I felt. I said, ‘You put my mom in that’ bathroom ‘. With the curtains open, why didn’t you close it? ”

Contacted by BBC News, the Rotherham Foundation and Council, the organization that manages hospitals in the Rotherham area, apologized to Bessie’s family and said patient care had been “improved later”.

Featherstone says people with dementia who are forced to use diapers or sanitary pads forget how to go to the bathroom.

“We know that many people with dementia who can go to the bathroom alone leave hospitals with incontinence,” he says.

“Therefore, with the simple process of using a sanitary napkin and the procedures around it, people will begin to lose the ability to go to the bathroom when needed,” he says.

“It can have a real impact on people later on. If we have to deal with incontinence, it can make it very difficult for families to care for one another and take these elderly people to nursing homes and nursing homes.”

Professor June Andrews, who has worked in the treatment of dementia for more than 30 years, says rigorous incontinence assessments are necessary to avoid speculation.

“I see documents that someone asked family members if the patient had intolerance. That was done to assess the situation,” he says.

“It is absolutely essential for families to know if an incontinence has been assessed and how to ask who produced that analysis.”

Karen Harrison Denning, director of research and publication at Dementia UK and co-author of the study, criticizes the care provided to dementia patients in NHS hospitals.

“People, regardless of their basic conditions and age, do not go to the hospital to suffer from incontinence,” he says.

“Not only do employees need specific training on how to improve an individual’s independence, but health organizations must have a commitment and responsibility to maintain the autonomy of the elderly.”

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