They Were Pill-aged

In 2020, I worked in a care home, looking after elderly folks, some of whom were bedbound. I was not trained to give medication or dress wounds.

The home was based over three floors, where carers were moved between on a weekly rota. Each floor had a nurse whose job was to medicate and dress patient wounds.

The nurses were all foreign and spoke poor English, and to be honest, they were bad at their job. This resulted in the non-trained staff dressing wounds and giving meds out.

At this point, I should say that the home manager was a complete waste of space. She spent most of her shift sitting in the office; the only thing she did was prepare medication to be given to the residents. These were put into trays with resident names on.

The trays were supposed to be taken to the residents’ rooms and the meds given to them. Because the nurses spoke poor English, it was often the case that the care staff would give the meds out.

Care staff started to notice that some of the residents weren’t reacting to the meds as usual. This started to get worse, and the care staff made the manager aware of this. Her reaction? The care staff weren’t trained to make such observations and should leave it to the nurses.

Most of us carers feared losing our jobs if we pushed it. But one carer, whom I’ll call Jill, was close to retiring. She decided to give one of the patient’s doctors a call, informing him of her concerns.

He came out to check on the patient. He was there when the meds were to be given and noticed that they were wrong. The carer who had called him said they were the same meds given every day.

The doctor asked one of the nurses to take him to the meds locker to check them out. The next thing we knew, a police car pulled into the home car park along with another doctor.

What was discovered? None of the special pain relief meds were what they should have been. Instead, they had been replaced with over-the-counter generic pain meds.

As would be expected, there was an investigation as to what was happening.

It was discovered that the manager was replacing the meds and selling them. She was sacked, and the residents dispersed to other homes. Most of the staff left the company. The last thing I heard the manager was convicted and spent time in prison.

The care company was closed three months later.