Aspies For Freedom

BBC

Mother speaks of care 'neglect'  

Budock Hospital, the centre of the commission's investigation
Allegations have emerged of the neglect of a mentally disabled Cornish man following claims of abuse of patients in the county.
Health watchdog the Healthcare Commission has sent in an expert team to improve services as part of an investigation into claims of abuse.

It said the unusual move was prompted by "significant failings" at the Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust (CPT).

Some concerns relate to Budock Hospital near Falmouth.

Carol Blakey from Truro removed her physically and mentally disabled son Ryan, 25, on two occasions from Budock, a treatment centre for 14 in-patients with conditions like autism, Asperger's and Down's syndrome.

Ryan was under 24-hour supervision when his parents were called to the hospital.

Mrs Blakey said: "We had a phone call saying there had been an accident. He was covered in blood on a sofa.

"We don't know what had happened to him, but the top of a finger had been sliced and the nerves were damaged."

The family had no reason to suspect that the injuries had been caused by anything other than an accident so they let social services re-admit Ryan two years later.

'Filthy dirty'

But when they went to visit him they were horrified by what they found.

Mrs Blakey said: "Ryan was walking up and down in a state of seizure. His eyes were zombified and he was just walking up and down ripping his fingers."He was filthy dirty. He had dried food all over his face and in his fingers and dried blood."

When Ryan got home they undressed him for a bath.

Mrs Blakey said: "His nails were curled under. They had not been cut. His teeth were yellow and his hands were so sore it took my husband and I an hour to get him into the bathroom."

The Healthcare Commission launched its investigation in June following claims of abuse and six staff at Budock Hospital were suspended.

Four staff have been sacked and two are still suspended.

'Matter of urgency'

The commission said on Tuesday that it was taking the unusual step of sending in an expert team before completing its enquiries in order to protect people with learning disabilities.

Criminal proceedings could be brought in six cases of alleged abuse which have been referred to the Cornwall Adult Protection Committee, a multi-agency body including social services and the police.

CPT spokesman Tony Gardner said: "There have been issues and we have taken action that we see fit.

"Clearly the Healthcare Commission have had an investigation and has taken the view that things need to happen as a matter of urgency.

"We welcome that expertise to work with us to find solutions to the problems that have arisen."

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I heard about this case a while ago, and I am glad they have taken action, the victorians would be ashamed to run a hospital like that.

To me the most telling detail was the mother's description of the uncut finger nails curling over.

This shews that it wasn't just one malicious care worker who had abused her son, but months and months of sustained neglect by doctors, nurses, care workers and so on.

And the solution? That a "team of experts" was now being "sent in" to see what could be done about the situation at the hospital.... how thoroughly disingenuous! How very Tony Blair!

You don't need "a team of experts" to see that patients  have their nails cut and do not sink into filthy and squalid neglect!  :evil:

Stella

Picture of the hospital.

Thanks for putting that picture up, Amy.  :smile:  I think it helps people to understand the kind of decaying ramshackle accomodation considered suitable for housing autistic people. Looking at the picture, it comes as no surprise that autistic people have been horribly abused there. The horror of so many bricked-up windows - dank rooms without daylight or fresh air of any kind.


Stella

Its very grim, not a plant, tree, or blade of grass in site. In the past they at least used to have some kind of basic greenery around a hospital to give a semblance of nature.

I know a little about this. I have AS, as does my son. I also live near and work in Falmouth (where the hospital is based).

My knowledge is based around my dealings with this NHS Trust which runs this hospital. This Trust is TOTALLY CORRUPT and MORALLY BANKRUPT. While I cannot go in to too many details, we have made THREE seperate complaints to the Healthcare Commission (HC) about this trust, and the lack of support thay have (have not provided) for my son (who also has a learning disability, epilepsy, ADHD and Tourette's Syndrome). All of these complaints are still (one was made over four years ago) ongoing, as the Trust has been very slow in giving information to the HC.

To give one example, my son's consultant saw my son, and said he needed to be on a particular medicine and dosage to control his seizures. However, it took the Trust two and a half months to issue a perscription. Their excuses varied from staff on holiday to staff sick, and even 'we've lost the consultants notes'.

Its disgraceful.

How awful, Tin Miner - if you do happen to hear any more locally about the abuses at Budock Hospital, would you very kindly let us know here? I feel that this is something which we need to follow up. The idea of other ASDs being confined in that moldering ruin is too dreadful to contemplate...

best wishes,

Stella

Will do. I'm keeping an eye on the local press.

As far as the hospital is concerned, you may be relieved to know that there are plans to demolish it, and move the patients to other exsiting facilities.

I am in two minds about this.

The hospital DOES need demolishing, as it appears to be out of Dickens novel (I've not been inside it - but it looks in poor shape from the road), BUT sending existing patients elsewhere will put added pressure on already over-stretched local services.

As far as I know it caters for patients who have profound learning disabilities, and mulitiple disabilities, where they are either unable to care for themselves, or there is no family carer to support them at home, or home is unsuitable for other reasons.

Therefore it is not just Autistic Spectrum disorders, but Downs Syndrome, Cerebal Palsy etc etc.

At least five people have already been sacked from the Trust due to abuse
directly realted to the hospital, but investigations are still continuing.......

Thanks for that Tin Miner....

I did know there were Down's people there as well as ASDs but that doesn't alter my feeling about the place.

I bet if you tried to keep horses in that leaky rotting barracks the RSPCA would be round in a shot and close it all down.

The many lies, excuses, evasions and delays in this case suggest that the health authority has no real interest in either seeing wrong-doers punished, or ensuring the well-being of those thrown upon the "care" of its mental health services.

Please do keep a look-out for any further developments in the case,

best wishes,

Stella

This hospital faces right onto the back of my old school's playing fields - (Falmouth Community School, Trescobeas site) - we had to walk past it whenever we had to do PE at the top field.

The place is a dump, if you peer in the windows it's full of cold corridors and plain plastered walls and doesn't look much cleaner than the outside. Also they seemed to "misplace" people from there on quite a regular basis and they'd end up searching the school grounds to round them up and take them back.

I remember being forced to apologise to the manager of the place after one of the kids threw a big blob of mud at the window - I (In my honesty) stopped and and gawked in a sort of "dude, what'd you do that for?" way, one of the nurses rushed to the window and started pointing and swearing at me since I was the one in line of sight and shouted for one of the teachers to grab me, had a weeks detention for it and had me stand up in front of the entire school just about and apologise for sullying "their good name". Heh, after I was diagnosed Aspergers I even had a teacher tell me "They should lock me up in there with the rest of the psychos"

The school was no better for inflicting mental damage than the asylum.

The abuse at care homes in that area is all over the UK news today, its sickening.

They could at least have made an attempt, to make the place look less like a building you'd expect to see in a horror film.

On that note, I was thinking for a long time..what if someone made a horror film based on these types of abuses? I guess it could be a documentary with a dramatic edge to it. Like the whole thing reminds me alot of the Saw movies.

Report it to who? - The headmaster of my yeargroup called me a retard :/

I heard the year or two after I left heads rolled after another incident and I think he lost his job. But the bullying I experienced was so widespread - students, teachers etc. it was easier for them to just let things carry on then try stop it.

There was another Aspie guy and he was basiclly the computer admin's right hand and had special priveledges in the computer room since it was his intrest. They banned me from the computer room however because I got beat up in there and when they came in to see what the ruckuss was he told the admin' that "retard kid had thrown a tantrum and thrown the keyboard at him" (Not that the keyboard was dislodged by me being laid across the desk and punched). So I was basiclly relegated to spending my breaks in the library (Assuming of course I wasn't on detention for being scapegoated by someone, which happened a LOT, the teachers thought I was a horrible boy because the kids would blame me for everything and they came to not trust my word at all)

And then NT's wonder why so many Aspies seem to harbour deep grudges against them  :roll:   (They should count themselves lucky I'm not one for grudges)