This story made me very angry.
Dawn Douglas, a woman struggling with dementia was admitted to Sunridge Place care home. She and her family were told she could have her cat with her.
Then one night a staff came for the cat and said she was going for a bath. She never came back with the cat. In return they gave the woman a stuffed toy.
Sunridge rehomed the cat, at least they claim they rehomed it.
http://www.standard-freeholder.com/2018/...fed-animal
I am angry that they lied to the woman. She has problems with dementia, she is not stupid!
The cat belonged to the woman. Sunridge Place care home could have asked her to get rid of it. They had no right to touch the cat or remove it themselves. The had absolutely no right to rehome it without consulting the family. No doubt someone in the family holds power of attorney and could legally make choices about the cat. The care home did not have that legal right.
The fact that the care home is not forthcoming about the whereabouts of the cat makes me fear for the cat's safety. If the cat is alive and well why don't they return it to the family immediately?
This whole thing is a violation of patient rights and a total disrespect for Dawn as a person.
Sadly I am not surprized by Sunridge's behavior. Care homes are anything but caring. They should be forced to change their name to Sunridge Home. They don't deserve to use the word care in their name.
I don't blame you for sounding off about this Catherine.
Technically it is at least "theft".
It is also very sad. There is a part of that lady who knows perfectly well that her cat isn't with her any more. My mother had dementia, and she could fluctuate in lucidity from hour to hour. Yet underneath it all, her heart and Soul remained intact and that, I could clearly sense.
I can't imagine what happened to the cat. If it has been re-adopted, then the care home people ought to be able to prove that. Surely they have some form of proof?
If animals were allowed there in the first place, then what were they doing taking the cat away anyway?
I am not surprised it makes you angry. It is treating both the cat and the old lady with great disrespect. And who can tell how much that cat might be pining for her? If it is still alive.
You will be relieved to know that the cat is still alive and living with the woman's son.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&...ncKG6KqrpU
It was theft, but at least Sunridge returned the cat.
The robotic cat is a silly substitute. Seniors homes are not very respectful of seniors. If the person has dementia they are even worse. They took a vulnerable lady and caused her pain and anxiety. The cat could have stayed in her room and the staff with allergies could have worked with other people in the home.
Years ago I had roommates who agreed to my cat and then one claimed allergies and wanted the cat to go. I said if the cat went, I went and so did my share of the rent. Suddenly the allergies were not an issue any more. I should have left anyhow. They were terrible roommates.
Some "carers" do not understand dementia. They think the person is 100% doolally. They think their Soul isn't there any more. The Soul is like the sun which is glimpsed above the clouds from time to time, and often most unexpectedly.
People with dementia are not devoid of feelings. Nor are they unable to tell when a loved one has been suddenly taken away.
Anyway I am very glad the cat is with the old lady's son. But it's a pity the cat couldn't have stayed with her. Showing a photograph to a person with dementia might not work. It depends.
It always amuses me how some people with allergies can suddenly be healed when money is involved! lol
I once had to go to a "healer's" house and she wanted me to paint signs for all the doors in this establishment. The signs she wanted were very intricate with lettering and flower designs. Each one would have taken a day to do. I told her they would be £25 each.
She was coughing and breathing hard. I asked her if she was okay. She said she could smell smoke on me and was allergic. She couldn't be near me.
Then I dropped the price to £20 each, and she came to the table to work out the designs. No sign of her previous "smoke allergy"! haha
The smoke was a mixture of wood smoke (from blowing the wood coals into flames) and my friend Peter's cigarettes which he had been smoking a lot in the car. Well I can't totally blame him, as I had one too that day.
I must have smelled bad. I don't deny that
People do not understand dementia. They think the mind is all or nothing. The woman may have serious memory problems, but she knows who she is and who her cat is. Messing with her by lying about taking the cat for a bath was not appropriate. Giving the cat away was theft. I am really glad the son got the cat back. At least she can visit the cat at her son's place when she visits him.
Seriously though, staff had no right to take anything from her room without the family's permission. What they did was theft.
Vulnerable people do very poorly in nursing homes. I think they are calling them assisted living homes. I am not sure people are getting the assistance they need to live happily in their remaining years.
I call it the case of the disappearing allergies. Whenever there is money involved the allergies disappear. When you dropped the price, suddenly her allergy to smoke disappeared.
People often claim allergies when they don't have allergies. They have some vague reaction and they decide it is an allergy to something. I have clients with Epi-Pens(prescribed by a doctor) to use in case of an allergic reaction, even though they don't actually have an allergy. If you can eat peanut butter then you don't have a peanut allergy.
Many people claim allergies to cats. I wonder about the care home staff. If there had been money in it for her would she have been okay.
There are people with serious allergies that's for sure, and they have to be very careful. It's hard to be like that.
But no, you can't be allergic to peanuts if you can eat peanut butter!
Sometimes I wonder if some of those not-so-genuine "allergies" are just a dislike of something....like the woman and the smoke. What she really meant was the smell offended her and she hated it. That's fair enough. But it wasn't an allergy obviously.
Sometimes when I visit Sally, I sneeze hard. Just once, then it's over. Now I'm not alergic to anything that I know of. But dust up my nose will make me sneeze. I worked out that I do that when Sally has been lying around in the sun outside. She lies in earth and dust, then when I stroke her and make a fuss of her, all the dust blows about. That's not a cat allergy.
Yes you are right. To take the cat without the family's permission is literally theft. It's no good the care staff saying the old woman wouldn't have understood if they had asked her. They ought to have asked the family first.
It's worked out okay I suppose. But that doesn't make the care staff right about what they did.
Sometimes people with allergies want the whole world to accommodate them. I took a flight once where we couldn't have peanut snacks because one person on the plane had an allergy.
There are schools that have banned peanut butter for lunch and they have even banned non peanut "peanut butters".
The irony is that the cure for peanut allergies is exposure to peanuts.
I have food intolerances. I hate to say allergies, but eating certain foods can make me sick. If I eat egg plant I will throw up even if it was delicious and I enjoyed it very much. It has happened a number of times so I am sure. I just make sure I don't eat it. I don't expect the rest of the world to give it up. I react to aloe vera and pomegranate too. So I have to be careful about hand creams and soaps. That would not be a good reason to take away someone else's stuff. Many of the homes I work in have things that I can't directly use. Maybe a cat allergy would be a little more difficult to avoid, but the cat was in the woman's room and the staff could have been assigned to other people.
I find institutions are a little heavy handed when they deal with the elderly. Stealing a cat is bad, but they also split up married couples who have been together for over 60 years. There reason is that they require different levels of care. That is no comfort to people who have been together for a lifetime.