Yvonne Ba­boolal

There is a lot of abuse of the el­der­ly in old age homes, in­clud­ing ad­min­is­ter­ing in­sulin with sewing nee­dles and leav­ing paral­ysed res­i­dents ly­ing in urine for days.This was the in­for­ma­tion passed on to the Guardian by a reg­is­tered home­own­er who said a lot of abuse is hap­pen­ing in non-reg­is­tered homes.There has been an in­crease in the num­ber of peo­ple who are 60 and over more of whom are be­ing placed in homes be­cause fe­male rel­a­tives are no longer at home to take care of them.

Di­rec­tor of Gen­tle Heart Geri­atric in Ari­ma, San­tik­er Mayo, was asked to give her re­sponse to new strin­gent laws that will crack down on abuse in old age homes.She wel­comed them the laws, say­ing they are need­ed be­cause she wit­nessed a lot of el­der­ly abuse in places she worked."I saw res­i­dents be­ing giv­en in­sulin with sewing nee­dles, help­less peo­ple ly­ing in urine and Alzheimer pa­tients be­ing roughed up."

Mayo said she opened her own home sev­en years ago but said it needs re­pairs. She runs the home on gov­ern­ment pen­sions res­i­dents pay her with, she said.One of the laws stip­u­lates strict build­ing codes for old age homes, in­clud­ing how wides doors should be, in what di­rec­tion they should swing and the types of floor­ing.A work­er at At Home Re­tire­ment Inc in San­gre Grande, who asked to with­hold her iden­ti­ty, al­so wel­comed the new laws.

Her con­cern was for staff em­ployed at old age homes who are paid be­low the min­i­mum wage and made to work long hours. She said none of those things hap­pen at the home where she works which is li­cenced. A new law makes it an of­fence to pay a work­er at an old age home be­low the min­i­mum wage.It al­so said the num­ber of staff should cor­re­spond to the num­ber of res­i­dents and hav­ing one burnt out work­er cook­ing, clean­ing, wash­ing and so­cial­is­ing with the el­der­ly will no longer be al­lowed.

Kele Ran­some is di­rec­tor of All Care Home Ser­vices, which pro­vides care­givers for the el­der­ly in their own homes. She said she opened the busi­ness pre­cise­ly be­cause of the abuse that is go­ing on in old age homes.Ran­some, al­so wel­com­ing the new laws, said: "The el­der­ly are not treat­ed with val­ue. To reg­u­late their care will give them a sense of val­ue."

Changes com­ing

�2 Li­cenc­ing will be manda­to­ry

�2 Homes will be clas­si­fied in­to two types, those where res­i­dents need lit­tle or no su­per­vi­sion, and those where a reg­is­tered nurse is re­quired

�2 Li­cenc­ing fees will be linked to the type of home and num­ber of res­i­dents and will be valid for two years. Homes will then be in­spect­ed to en­sure they meet stip­u­lat­ed re­quire­ments.

�2 The qual­i­ty of food and wa­ter and fi­nan­cial records of the homes will be in­spect­ed.

�2 Man­agers or mem­bers of staff who block the in­spec­tion team will have to pay a $25,000 fine or spend two years in jail on a sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, or $50,000 or five years for an in­dictable of­fence.

�2 Man­agers and staff will face fines and im­pris­on­ment for abuse of res­i­dents.

�2 If homes do not meet re­quire­ments, li­cences can be sus­pend­ed or re­voked.

�2 No longer can some­one open a home with­out mon­ey and re­ly to­tal­ly on the gov­ern­ment to fund it. The op­er­a­tor has to pro­duce a cer­tifi­cate of good char­ac­ter and proof of ad­e­quate fund­ing.

�2 Strict build­ing codes are re­quired, in­clud­ing a cer­tain width for doors and non-slip­pery floor­ing. Homes have to be in­sured for, at least, $100,000 and man­agers have to sub­mit bi-an­nu­al re­ports.

�2 Manda­to­ry so­cial stim­u­la­tion for res­i­dents.

�2 Staff must cor­re­spond to the num­ber of res­i­dents. For type one homes, one staffer to every ten res­i­dents is re­quired and for type two, one to every five.

�2 Man­agers who pay staff be­low the min­i­mum wage and with­hold pay­ing their na­tion­al in­sur­ance will face fines and im­pris­on­ment.

�2 The po­lice and the Di­vi­sion of Age­ing must be no­ti­fied when a res­i­dent dies.

�2 Res­i­dents and oth­er whistle­blow­ers can lodge com­plaints with the Di­vi­sion of Age­ing, as well as rel­a­tives and mem­bers of the pub­lic who vis­it homes.

Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice's fig­ures on the in­crease in peo­ple 60 and over

1960 � 49,988

1970 � 62,668

1980 � 83,159

1990 � 108,014

2000 � 120,434