A HOME help who sent a message to an elderly and frail client in which she admitted she was “half cut” before showing up for her duties, was found guilty of serious misconduct by the Health Service Executive.
The complaint was one of a number relating to public and private sector home helps made to the HSE in 2010 and which were released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act.
In one a HSE disciplinary investigation was carried out in Donegal after a client’s daughters reported that the home help sent a text message on April 10th last year which read “me half cut me c u bout 9 ok mrs”.
The client’s daughter said that, when the home help showed up for work, she and her sisters could smell alcohol from her and knew she had been drinking by the way she “bounced off the walls”.
When interviewed, all four of the client’s daughters said the home help regularly turned up at work under the influence of alcohol, most noticeably at weekends.
HSE investigators concluded that “on the night in question [the home help] was under the influence of alcohol”. They also found the home help “often” single-handedly transferred the client with a hoist, something standards and procedures state requires two people.
Their report said investigators believed the woman was under the influence of alcohol and this coupled with an attempt to carry out duties which required two people could have had “catastrophic consequences for [the client] who is an elderly and frail lady”. A HSE West spokeswoman said disciplinary action was taken but would not specify what the action was.
The Irish Timessought information on all complaints made about home helps to 20 of the HSE's 32 local health offices last year. Not all replied. Of those that did some 47 complaints had been received by them.
In one case in Limerick a client of a private homecare company complained to the HSE last January a home help had told him to “f**k off and that it was because of him that she had to travel out in four foot of snow”.
In this case the carer, who had received no complaints about her work from other clients, was removed from the client but continued to work for the company. The client subsequently asked after the original carer, complimented her and asked if she would be coming back.
Another complaint related to a private homecare company in Dublin, alleging a carer had dropped a piece of toast butter-side down and attempted to give it to the client.
The client’s daughter also complained she had said several times over a five-week period her mother needed a shower but that this did not happen; and that the carer failed to turn up for work or did not stay for the time agreed and asked her mother not to disclose the fact.